Martha Scheiblauer

Martha Scheiblauer, late resident of Grants Pass, Oregon. From 1970 -on Martha resided with husband Joe in Jackson and Josephine Counties.

Martha was born in Montana, forty miles north of Miles City, in an area called “The Big Open”, where there was nothing but rolling prairie. Her parents Henry Friesz and Juliana Bierwagon, both emigrated to the US as children from the Ukraine area of Russia in the late 1890’s. They were of German heritage. Henry homesteaded some of the last available Montana land, around 1910. Martha was number eight of nine children, born December 8, 1926.

Life was first good, then very tough, as the soil depleted and the Great Depression swept the land. The homestead was lost to the bank in 1937, and the family moved to Miles City, where Henry drove truck and mined shale coal. Martha graduated from high school early and moved to Seattle to join the war effort working for Boeing. In the spring of 1945, she met the love of her life, a young Navy sailor, Joe Scheiblauer, whose nickname was “Kelly”, given because he was such a good dancer. They were married on November 9, 1945. Her much-loved sister Emma, served as maid of honor.

Son Joseph Kelly was born in 1946, followed by son Stephen Bruce in 1949. After his Navy discharge Joe and Martha lived in Miles City, then Long Beach, then back to Montana in 1950-51, to manage a ranch owned by Martha’s older brother Reinhart. Then it was back to Long Beach, where Joe became a general contractor. Martha at first stayed home, raising their boys, but in 1963 she obtained a real estate sales license. selling homes, including those that Joe built on spec. She did well, obtained a broker’s license, and opened her own office in Seal Beach, where they lived at the time. Martha sold beach-area properties, and ended up with a loyal set of clients who valued her keen eye for good investments.

After their two sons were out on their own Joe and Martha move to Birdseye Creek area in 1970 , where Joe built a house and Martha made it a home. Martha again sold real estate, but switched to the Josephine Health Department, where she worked as an administrative assistant until retirement in 1993. Later they lived in Weimer before moving into Grants Pass.
Martha and Joe loved road-tripping, camping and fishing, and were both excellent outdoors people. They also had an enthusiastic love of music, and during their Oregon years played in and lead several Dixieland jazz bands, the “Dixie Jazz Misfits” and “Dixie Fat Cats” being two. They played mostly banjo, with Martha also playing mandolin. They performed at parades, store openings, parties, bars, and rest homes, for nearly forty years, developing many dear friends. They only stopped when Joe’s health declined. It was about this time, 2011, that they moved into the independent-living facility first called “Spring Meadows”, where once again they made new friends. Martha was very warm and outgoing. She would not hesitate to sit at the table of new residents to welcome them. Her family remarked often on her easy going, optimistic spirit and cherished her for it.

Husband and great love Joe passed away in 2013, and she felt deep loss again when oldest son Joe passed away from cancer in 2017. Martha was Christian, found great solace in reading the Bible, and believed she would be reunited with her two Joes and other loved ones in heaven. Among her last words--that she was “ready to fly, to sing and play in God’s chorus with her sweetheart”.

She passed away, peacefully, with family at her side, November 9, 2019, age 92, one day short of her 74th wedding anniversary. She was a very intelligent woman, mentally sharp to the end, and she so loved her four grandsons Nick (Becca), Jeremy, Kris (Skye) and Ethan, six great grandchildren (Morgan, Pippa, Ben, Ellie, Matt, and Calvin) with all her immense heart. Her ashes will be interred with husband Joe’s in the Eagle Point National Veteran’s Cemetery.

Martha is predeceased by her parents, Henry and Juliana Friesz, husband Joseph and son Joseph, Jr., brothers Otto, Reinhart, and William, and sister Maggie. She is survived by son Steve (Kim), brothers Dan, Ben (Ann), and her sisters Ruth and Emma, plus much-cherished nieces and nephews. She adored her large family and said often how fun their gatherings were. Martha and late husband Joe also earned and were richly blessed with an abundance of friends: neighbors, bandmates, clients, workplace comrades, and residents at Cascade Independent Living. Many came to visit, even if it was just to sit quietly with her in last hours. The family also appreciates the service and care provided by the staff at Cascade over the past eight years, as well as stand-out caregiver Valerie Scudder. Thank you!

A memorial and celebration of life will be at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, December 21, 2019 at Cascade Independent Living, 1357 Redwood Circle, Grants Pass.

Following, a poem by Martha’s daughter-in-law, read at husband Joe’s memorial and commissioned by Martha at the time:

HEARTLAND RIVER
for Joe & Martha

1)
It begins,
a see-through brook
spilling placidly over
pristine stones

scrolling into a refuge
screened by wild rice,
high, leaned into by wind

becomes
a river so vast
at the most wide-apart shores
he could see the curve of the earth.

His first steamboat ride
a Minnesota boy
pilot navigating tides,
slow tugs pushing barges,
the broad, wooded islands
that still stand in their own
wavering reflections.

He would sense
ghosts of long-ago trappers
who moved through denser forest,
no dams, no locks,
crack shots who took the river’s
name from Ojibway or Chippewa
then uttered it in French.

A fish leaps, shatters
surface into
spangles of light,
heron swoops after, his eye
an amber jewel gleaming.

The boat presses on,
river closing seamlessly,
secrets held deep.

Cities start small in the distance,
loom larger, their faint din passed by.


Then, on deck
nearing New Orleans,
ripple of banjo notes.
Engine beat
counter point
to bass player’s
reverberation.
Sun blaze
on the trumpet bell
tilted upward.


2)
He doesn’t know
his future
but we do:

There will be a girl.
she will have left
Montana prairie behind, left
winters so cold lambs
were brought in at night
to sleep with her brothers.

There will be a first dance.
she’ll fit to his cheek.

There will be two boys.

He’ll build, she will sell.

She will learn banjo,
find the timbre--music’s color--
gather the heart-shaped picks.

Returning often
to slanted river sides
they, as always, search out
shadowed currents,


match
catch for catch--
past dinner, sundown,
past dark.


© Kim Scheiblauer