Martha Jean Stewart

The story of Martha Jean Stewart’s life might be told best through her hands. They were hands of extraordinary strength, gentleness, creativity and compassion, capable of reaching beyond her 82 years of life.

They began as the hands of an inquisitive little girl born on a swampland farm in Southeast Missouri to Ralph and Alma Hubbard. They were busy hands, becoming expert at holding onto her twin, Mary (and later, sisters Ruth and Alice). They played piano, turned pages of every book she could touch and made especially good mud pies with the thick gumbo dirt and a little flour sprinkled on top.

They were the hands of a gifted musician and music teacher who attended Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, double majoring in piano and choral music. Here, her hands began their life’s work of challenging and delighting students. And here, on a cold October night, she reached over to warm the chilled hands of her homecoming date, William Donald Stewart. He shivered in his one, summer suit. She took his hand and tucked it into her coat pocket. Four years and hundreds of letters later, he placed a ring on her hand and began a partnership that would offer home, hospitality and hope to countless persons.

They were the hands of a mother who wiped tears and bottoms with equal care, who saw every occasion as an opportunity to learn something fascinating, and who encouraged the love of music in her children, Don, Angel and Teresa. She was not limited by biological relationship in her mothering. Her child was any child who needed care. And her hands quietly took on such things as starting a Girl Scout troop in the part of town where the children had no activities, welcoming in foreign students removed from their first host home, and later in life, teaching ESL to refugee families.

They were the hands of a gracious host, who deftly whipped up countless casseroles and thousands of pans of golden bars to both celebrate and console. They were hands committed to this simple truth: to care for people, start by feeding them, wherever they are, just as they are.

They were the hands of a choir director, who for more than 25 years, started bell choirs, children’s choirs, youth musicals and gestured the choir of the First United Methodist Church of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to extravagant song. While she introduced magnificent composers, music for her was not performance, but ministry. Alongside practicing and selecting music, her hands dialed phones, wrote notes of encouragement and rang doorbells — always leaving behind a pan of golden bars.

They were the hands of an English teacher, who filled her empty nest with a masters in English Literature and high-school teaching position, who insisted on the worth of each student’s story and who wrote ambitious grants to bring laureates such as Howard Nemerov and Maya Angelou to the students of Poplar Bluff because they, too, deserved such things. As one former student explained, “It was characteristic of her to see possibility in everyone, to look at raw material (and overlook immaturity, apparently) and to imagine out loud what gifts we might bring to the world as we grew into our full selves. She made me feel special, but I see now that she held in her hands that same reserve of hope and possibility for each student she encountered.”

They were the hands of an intrepid traveler, learner and explorer whose end tables were lined with thoughtfully annotated books of every genre and who visited countries around the world, carefully chronicling each trip to offer friends and family a distinctive type of travelogue that celebrated the marvels of this world and the goodness of its people.

They were the hands of a grandmother for Justin, Beth, Luke, Ellie and Zora, who held each grandchild as a sacred treasure, who took notes on each child’s encounters with the world, whose freezer was filled with each child’s favorite ice cream, and whose suitcase always held surprises such as screaming balloons and sticker books.

They were the hands of an artist, capable of writing musicals, crocheting blankets, welding whimsical art, painting pottery and crafting a history of her farm home from her parents’ letters and her own memories (“Flagland: the History of a Swamp Farm”) — a gift for future generations who might not know her hands, but would feel their hospitable shaping of the world.

Perhaps most certainly, they were the hands of a disciple who spent five decades planning, teaching and loving Vacation Bible School, and who began most mornings in a time of quiet devotion, reading her Bible and fingering a list of persons whom she held before God in prayer. She recorded each name on a thin strip of paper tucked in her Bible. Each year, the list grew longer. Even as dementia stripped many of her gifts, her discipleship was still apparent, heard in her confidently singing hymns and quietly touching the care givers, who felt her blessing each of them even when there were no more words.

The hands of Martha Jean Stewart became for her family and communities the very hands of God at work among us. We celebrate the gift of her life! We celebrate her witness to the promise of resurrection! We celebrate a foretaste of the feast that some of us first experienced around a kitchen table with her or in the myriad meals that simply showed up just when she thought they might be needed.

The family invites you to join them in a memorial service at 1 p.m. May 31 in the sanctuary of Missouri United Methodist Church, 204 S. 9th Street, Columbia, MO 65201. A reception will follow at the church. More information may be found on Facebook at Jeanie.Stewart1.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to Missouri United Methodist Church in her name. These funds will be used for providing scholarships to Vacation Bible School, purchasing curriculum for study groups and supporting the children’s music programs.