Draft One of Mom's Obituary

                In loving memory of Nadine Martin, Mom, Nani, Nay, of Pleasant Hill, born  in Kansas City Missouri  on October 25, 1921, named Natalie Virginia Stephens and renamed Nadine Virginia Robison by her adoptive parents Perry and Lela Robison, who moved to Oklahoma and then to California, where she attended school and studied piano and ballet.

                An honor student, she started UCLA at the age of sixteen, also attended U.C. Berkeley,  and later dropped out of college to marry Elmore Martin,  type his dissertation, and have five children.  When they moved to South Carolina, she continued her education through correspondence courses at the University of South Carolina,  and the year they lived in Hayes Kansas, she graduated with honors  from Fort Hayes Kansas State College with a degree in English.  She and her family then moved to Pleasant Hill, California. 

                After twenty-five years of marriage, she was divorced.  She worked as a counselor at the Children’s Shelter in Contra Costa County, where she met Kathy Loss, who became her partner and companion for forty years.  She also worked as a Probation Office for Alameda County, where she got praise for her beautifully written court reports.  She retired after about twenty years and learned to use the Internet at the age of seventy-two so that she could do volunteer work at Mount Diablo Valley Peace and Justice Center.    

                In her sixties, she discovered that her birth mother  had five other children, four of whom she then met for the first time. 

                She was still tap dancing and roller blading in her seventies, and she and Kathy traveled together to Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia, bicycled across the Netherlands, visited her daughter Tina in Algeria, took cruises to Mexico and Hawaii, went camping across the northern part of the United States to find the perfect apple pie.  She was such a francophone that she had "La Marseillaise" as a doorbell chime, and her favorite trip abroad was probably one to see the Impressionist exhibit in Paris.  She also made trips to see her daughters Dana and M’Lissa and their children and to visit her daughter Susan in Texas.

               In her seventies, she and her grandson Jonathan formed the Jo-Nani Duo, giving ten-minute family concerts twice a year, with her on the piano, him on the clarinet. 

                In her eighties she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and in late March she moved to Aegis, where she played the piano for other residents and staff, sometimes believing that she was employed there.  She often spoke of her love for her son David and was looking forward to his visit on her ninetieth birthday  October 25.   

                Her daughter M’Lissa Martin Jones died in 1994.  She is survived by her partner Kathy Loss, her son David, daughters Dana, Tina, and Susan.  Her daughter M’Lissa Martin Jones died in 1994.   She is also survived by granddaughters Rebecca Jones Carlisle, Jamie Jones Markel, Megan Jones and grandsons Erik and Karl Langner and Jonathan Martin Wills, her  great-granchildren Samantha and Alison Markel and Emily Carlisle, and dog Sammy.

                She loved gardening, reading, playing tennis and Scrabble, doing crossword puzzles, and  bicycle riding.   Her children remember her handiwork in making their clothes, costumes, formals, and even the afghan covering her at the time of her death on October 12, 2011.  She will be remembered for her warmth and wit, social activism, and the inspiration she provided for those who knew her. 

There will be a memorial gathering for Nadine’s close friends and family.  Please call Kathy Loss at 925 935-5259 for further information. 

Donations in memory of Nadine can be made  to Alzheimer’s Association or  to the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center.