Martha Baird came into the world as a shock to her family. The last of six children, she was born to a pair of bakers George and Rosa Baird when her oldest brother was twenty six. One Sunday, after baking the normal eighty loaves of bread, Rosa sent the rest of the family to church and went to rest as she was feeling ill. When the family got home, Rosa had the new baby to present.
Martha was a happy child in her earliest years, but that happiness was shattered when she was eight years old. One hot July day, while walking home from church with her father George, her oldest brother met them on the road to attack her father. George died of his injuries a few days later. His death and the ugly court case which followed marked the rest of her …show more content…
When Martha was nineteen she married Frank Walker. When Rosa died, just a few months after the wedding, the shock caused Martha’s first daughter, Elizabeth to be born several months early. In 1935 there was little chance the baby would live, but Martha was determined her daughter would make it. Martha fought her own exhaustion and grief while following the doctor’s orders for Elizabeth. For months she had to force her tiny child to cry for at least an hour a day, as well as making sure her daughter woke to eat every two …show more content…
Frank was multi-skilled, and built a new house around the old one as materials became available. Martha hated the dust and distance from anywhere, how hard it was to keep her family and home clean, and all the cockroaches and other creatures she was constantly chasing from her house.
As the tensions of World War II grew, and the government became more active in testing bombs in the Mojave Desert, Martha volunteered to tend a radiation station installed near her house. She put a fresh sheet of specially treated paper in the station each week, and mailed the old one to an office where they estimated how much radiation from the nuclear tests in the desert were reaching the town. She stayed busy raising her daughters and working with many of the local service organizations, including the PTA, the election board, and the Red