Martha Goodman Stockham

Martha Goodman Stockham, a woman with the biggest of personalities, whose great joy was gathering friends and family, made her final exit from life’s party on March 16th, 2024. She came into this world on February 20th, 1941. Born in Oklahoma City to Robert Morris and Antoinette Kennedy Goodman, she arrived ready to tell fun stories, make mischief, and gather people with big laughs, wonderful food, and compelling spaces, which she did in abundance for the rest of her life.

Growing up in Enid, Durant, Denver and Albuquerque with her beloved brother Bob Goodman, she graduated from Albuquerque High in 1959, attended the University of New Mexico, and earned her degree from Stephens College. She was an active member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, where she remained involved for many years as a mentor.

She met the man she adored, Dr. Thomas G. Stockham, Jr., at a Kirtland Air Force Base officers’ party in New Mexico in 1962. They were married June 22nd, 1963, in Albuquerque’s St. John’s Cathedral, and remained together until his death on January 6, 2004.

Most important to Martha were her family and the many, many friends who became her people. She was a great mom to her four children, Tom (Kristin), Carol, John (Christine), and Dave (Rachael). She’s also survived by her 16 grandchildren, who have always known her as Woobie.

She had a special knack for curating, crafting gathering spaces with remarkable ambiance, food and people. The experiences she created on Lake Powell and at her ranch house in the remote Henry Mountains were especially remarkable for the ways they fostered a love of friends and family and nature. Inspired by that nature she became a prolific painter starting in her 60s, capturing scenes and memories that those who were close to her will cherish a little more deeply through her art.

Her “curating” wasn’t limited to art and people, extending to statuettes of chickens and frogs, and to mustard and dental floss. And when she wasn’t working on a collection or a get together she had an insatiable need to know, “where are the dogs?” nearly always finding them mischievously “hiding” in plain sight at her feet.

After getting her real estate license in Massachusetts in 1967, she invested her $7,500 savings to help Amar Bose start the Bose Corporation. In the early ‘70s she was an active member of the Junior League and president of the Indian Hills PTA. Later she served on many boards, including the Hospice and Primary Children’s Medical Center boards, Rowland Hall-Saint Mark’s School board of trustees, the University of Utah College of Nursing Alumni Association board, and the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks board. She helped with big development efforts as part of the board at the Ronald McDonald House and as an original co-chair of the Cooper Club, to help build the Natural History Museum of Utah. Perhaps her favorite of all was collecting and organizing the art for the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

In 1987 she earned her BSN from the University of Utah and became a public health nurse with the Salt Lake City/County Health Department. She went on to become the head nurse at the Salt Lake Endoscopy Center and finally spent several years as one of “Charlie’s Angels” in pain and palliative care at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

For Martha there were never enough ways to be social. Shortly after moving to Utah in 1968 she and a group of close friends founded “Drink of the Month” club as a way to get together regularly with several fun loving couples. DotM remains a thriving social organization to this day. She was an active member of the Alta Club, the Town Club, and the Salt Lake County Club, and she could never get enough of her book group and neighborhood speaker series/dinner club.

Whether you knew Martha as the bold and irreverent pilot of the Marth-mobile, or as the creative chef of a seemingly impossible appetizer spread in Utah’s remote desert, or as an uncompromising curator of art, or as a fierce and cunning bridge partner, or as a neighbor who had an uncanny ability to build bridges to every social circle, or just as the woman who always made you laugh and feel better about yourself, you know this world will be a little less joyful without her. She’ll be missed.

A gathering to celebrate Martha’s life will be held at the Natural History Museum of Utah on Friday, March 22nd, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution to the University of Utah in memory of Martha G. Stockham. (Your contribution will support the Thomas G Stockham Medal for Conspicuously Effective Teaching and can be made here: https://bit.ly/UGiveinMemoryofMarthaStockham)