Fredericka Martin

Martin was born on July 2, 1905 in Cooperstown, New York.[1] She was the daughter of Frederick Alfred Martin, a fireman for the Delaware and Hudson Railway, and his wife Lydia C. Pennington. Her parents were married in June 2004, and within six months of their marriage, Frederick died from a rail accident.[2][3] Martin was born in her paternal grandparent's home. When she was four years old, her mother Lydia remarried George Wilbur, who was fifteen years older than her. George was a widower, and had a child, George Sr., who was only five years younger than Lydia, also worked as a fireman in the D&H railway, and died in 1925. Lydia and George had their own child, George Jr. Martin had a friendly relationship with her stepfather, George. In 1922, at the age of 17, Martin married Albert Shakes,[lower-alpha 1] from Lowell, Massachusetts, who was thought to be born in Greece.[4]

Following secondary school, Martin moved to Jersey City, to live and work with the St. Margaret Episcopalian Order of Nuns.[1] She at first thought to become a nun, yet later chose to turn into a medical attendant. In 1925, she went to nursing school at the associated Christ Hospital around there.[5] After her graduation with honor, Martin worked at Fordham, Bellevue, Crotona Park Hospital, and Lying-In Hospital. In 1929, Martin married Alexander Cohen, who was a British Jewish. While living in New York, the couple lived in a co-op apartment in Cooper Square, Manhattan.[6][5]

During the mid-30s, Martin joined as a functioning part of the nurse's association and furthermore began partaking in classes in New York City's Labor Temple. The sanctuary was supported by the Presbyterian church. The labor sanctuary was where the functioning individuals, all things considered, could communicate their musings. Martin started fostering her aptitude for unknown dialects by learning Russian and Yiddish at the association.[7] In 1935, Martin and her husband took a trip to Europe, during their visit, they stayed in England, Russia, and Germany. On their way home from England in October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia.[8]

Upon returning home from Europe, the couple had a divorce.[9] Martin at that point was an active figure in the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy.[10] At the time, Martin worked as a night shift supervisor at Croton Hospital in New York.[11] The head of the Medical Bureau, Dr. Edward K Barsky, recruited Martin due to her skills in leadership and organization. She also was to be the head nurse and administrator for the hospital division.[12][13] On January 16, 1937, Martin and her unit departed to Spain, as the first American medical unit to be there.[14] Martin was one among the seventeen individuals in uniform on the primary ship transportation medical volunteers, supplies, and ambulances to the Kingdom of Spain via France, due to passport invalidation. Upon arriving at the destination in Spain, the unit needed to find locations for setting up the hospitals. The 1st hospital was in an exceedingly faculty building in El Romeral, that was inaugurated on Feb 21, 1937, and in the first half of April, a dedicated American Base Hospital was opened in Villa Paz.[7]

Martin trained local Spanish women as assistants, due to the shortness of staff in the hospitals. Eventually, there were 400 nurses.[15] The hospitals treated both civilians and military patients. Sterilization of the surgical instruments, iodine, and alcohol was in short supply. Whenever soaps ran out, they made soap on their own. When there was no kitchen in the hospital, the cooking was done by open fires.[16]

By the December of 1937, Martin and her medical unit had prepared between 6 to 9 hospitals and labored with Dr. Barsky and others to set up mobile operating units.[15] Martin used to take notes in her workbooks, which were filled with details about the materials needed and the work she and her department's staff were doing.[17] Martin gained the nickname of "Ma," for the way she treated both the staff and patients. In several interviews, Martin shared the story of distributing chocolates and small pieces of fruit cake to the staff so that they had something to get cheered and excited about, and conjointly supplementing what were known as spartan-meals.[18] She also told that the nurses of her unit always used make-up, so that they'd look their best and be able to cheer up the patients mentally.[19]

In the late January 1938, Martin left Cherbourg and returned to the US, mainly to raise funds for 120 or so American medical volunteers, who were still in Spain. The funds raised and supplies obtained were shared with other medical volunteer groups.[20] Martin's fundraising tour took her across the country. She was on the same billing as the famous writer and satirist Dorothy Parker, in some places.[21] Throughout Martin's speeches and interviews with the media at that time, she told of the deadly bombings of the hospitals, and the close calls she and her unit had endured.[16][22][23]

She proudly told about the securing of the patients in the cellar, in just seven minutes right before the bombs hit during the terrible raid in December 1937. Two of the three hospital buildings were destroyed by the raid. In an interview by the Seattle Times, she said that one of the many things that they all were scared of in Spain was moonlight, as moonlight would allow the enemy bombers to see the hospitals.[16] The staff of their unit had to dim the lights when the initial alarm of enemy planes was sounded, and the surgeries of the wounded would continue with a flashlight over the operating table.[19] Martin has stated in her biographical book on the Medical Bureau, that the Americans who she met on that fundraising tour made her proud and happy.

In February 1939, Martin enrolled in New York University for Hospital Administration. By April of that same year, her reputation for hospital organization led her to Greenbelt, Maryland.[24] The federal officials asked Martin to convert a newly built attached-house into a medical facility. Working there, she met the Director of Public Health in Greenbelt, Dr. Samuel Righter Berenberg. In 1940, they got married. The couple did not settle for long in Greenbelt, as they went on to provide medical services to an island in the Bering Sea, by the request of the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service.[25]

They arrived on St. Paul Island on June 25, 1941. Both Martin and Sam were very curious about the island, as they planned to spend the first year exploring the surrounding environment, and finding ways to help the working and living Aleut people. Freddy and Sam had a daughter, Tobyanne Berenberg Martin on August 19, 1941. Sam's and Martin's desire to get to know the Aleut was not looked upon with favor, as the Aleuts were considered dirty, lazy, and uneducated people, also the officials in St. Paul island did not associate with such ethnic groups.[26]

In the early June 1942, Sam's and Martin's year on St. Paul Island was brought to an early end by the impending Japanese invasion which began with the bombing of Dutch Harbor. The residents of St. Paul island were closely monitoring the progress of the war as the Japanese previously had a long history with the fur seal, and with the Aleutians.[5] Martin lamented that:

Seeking a respite from the clamorous world for a year, we had settled too close to the dragon’s tail.[5]

On July 14, 1941, the US Navy finally evacuated St. Paul island. Martin and her daughter Tobyanne sailed for Seattle and home, while Sam still stayed on in Alaska until the end of his tour of duty.[5] The experiences that Martin had on St. Paul island, provided her with projects that influenced the rest of her very active life. The teenage daughter of one of the important Aleuts family, Alexandra Gromoff, accompanied Berenbergs back to the States. Alexandra lived with the Berenbergs in New York and attended college there.[27]

Sam and Martin decided to act to bring the real picture of the St. Paul island to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and to the world, motivated by their experiences with the people on the Island, and their direct observation of how poorly the Aleut people were treated. Sam’s Annual Medical Report 1941-1942 detailed the lack of food, supplies, and housing provided to the sealers and their families. His report was mainly designed to provide the information needed to the government to improve the life of the residents.[5]

In 1950, Martin and Sam separated through a divorce, while their daughter Tobyanne was nine years old. Sam remarried in the later part of that same year.[28] Martin then took Tobyanne on a yearlong trip to Mexico, and they ended up liking the place very much that eventually, they stayed there.[29] However, during the 1950s the members of the Medical Brigade came under scrutiny because they had been or had worked alongside the Communists during the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Barsky lost his medical license and spent time in prison for not cooperating with the Congressional investigations.[27] Since Martin had been in Spain during the Civil War, and she had become an advocate of the Aleut people of the Pribilofs, she also was a target of the authorities. Martin and her daughter used to pay periodical visits to the US. Before Martin and her daughter left for Mexico, and amidst their return visits home, Martin was investigated by the FBI.[7] In 1959, Martin's mother Lydia died.[26]

In Mexico, Martin and Tobyanne joined an ex-patriot community in Cuernavaca, and Martin continued with her writing. Martin visited Spain in 1972, to research the historical records of the Spanish exploration of Alaska because Martin’s efforts with the Aleuts led to a grant on the research by the government.

In her last few years, Martin valiantly strived financially with finding a home with reasonable rents, space to house her collection of materials in Spain and Alaska, clerical help to type her many letters to continue her advocacy work, and correspondence with friends and family. She also struggled against her infirmities.[26]

Martin died on October 4, 1992 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.[30] Her daughter Tobyanne brought her ashes to Alaska to be buried on St. Paul Island. Her epitaph was approved by the people of St Paul Island,[31] it reads:

FREDERICKA I. MARTIN, June 2, 1905-October 4, 1992, An Internationalist who fought for peace in the Spanish Civil War and for the rights of the Aleut People of the Pribilof Islands.[26]

In 1986, Martin was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska, making her one of the seven people to receive it.[32]

• Martin, Fredericka. Before the Storm: A Year in the Pribilof Islands, 1941-1942. University of Alaska Press. ISBN 978-1602230767
• Martin, Fredericka: The Hunting of the Silver Fleece.
• Johnson, Ashley: Healing the Wounds of Fascism
• Willen, Janet; Gann, Marjorie (2015). Speak a Word for Freedom: Women against Slavery. Tundra Books. p. 127. ISBN 978-1770496514.
• Martin, Fredricka. Sea Bears: The Story of the Fur Seal. Literary Licensing, LLC. ISBN 978-1258515294.
• Lynaugh, Juan (1994). Nursing History Review, Volume 3: Official Journal of the American Association for the History of Nursing. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812214529.
• Jones, Dorothy (1980). A Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts Under U.S. Rule. University Press of America. ISBN 978-0819113498.