For more than four decades, Martha Kishner Baumgarten introduced herself to new acquaintances as "from Chicago — but living in Richmond."  But Martha gained more than a lifelong identity from the city in which she was born, raised, and spent her young adulthood; more importantly, Chicago is also where she made lifelong friends, finished her education and began her professional career, met her husband, and returned time-and-again to be together with her small but tightknit family and her friends.

Martha was born to the late Blanche L. and Harry P. Kishner on November 29, 1946. She remained exceptionally close to them throughout their long lives, inheriting a love of Frank Sinatra and a sentimental disposition from her father, and taking great pride that her friends invariably described her mother as "remarkable" for her youthfulness, vigor, and natural silver hair.

While still in diapers, Martha made her first three lifelong friends – Enid, Laura, and Laurel. The foursome spent their childhood together, eventually taking to calling themselves the "MELLs" (and, decades later, their husbands the "MELLmen," their children the "MELLettes," and so on). Even as they scattered around the country and beyond in their adulthood, they frequently reunited in person, invariably engaging in a unique version of the card game Spoons that appeared to outsiders to consist primarily of shrieking and hysterical laughter.

Younger sister Kathy arrived when Martha was five. Martha took the role of big sister seriously. So, when she determined it was time to pass on to Kathy her prized doll, "Laura Revlon," and her wardrobe of dresses handstitched by their Nana, she did so only after providing Kathy with extensive instructions for Laura Revlon's care. The sisters also cherished family car trips to visit their Aunt Rose in Philadelphia, featuring songs and games and stops at Howard Johnson's along the drive.

After the family moved to the North Shore suburb of Glencoe in 1961, Martha graduated from New Trier High School, then the University of Michigan, and earned a PhD from Northwestern University, with both degrees in Psychology. She launched a career in educational psychology, working for the Illinois Department of Education, as Assistant Dean and Director of Program Development at Truman College, and as director of an NIH grant on improving cancer education for medical students at the Medical College of Virginia.

While in graduate school and after, Martha lived in Sandburg Village, enjoying Chicago's cultural scene with friends. She would frequently reunite for decades to come with two of those Sandburg Village friends, Nancy and Helene, despite the trio's lack of a catchy acronym.

In 1977, while attending a birthday party for a dog, Martha met Clive Baumgarten, and they married in October 1978. The young couple honeymooned in Carmel; traveled to England, France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland; and cooked elaborate meals. Clive's job brought them to Richmond, Virginia—a culture shock-inducing move which only cemented Martha's dedication to Chicago. Nonetheless, she and Clive would spend all but the last few months of their 45 years of marriage living there. Martha built another set of enduring friendships over long lunches and movie matinees and welcomed generations of Clive's students and colleagues into their home.

Martha and Clive's only son, David, was born in 1984, and she eventually stopped working to devote herself to raising him. She deployed her educational psychology background to teach him studying and standardized testing strategies, spent countless hours intently cheering for him at various sporting events, and lovingly worried about him in the way only a Jewish mother can. She also ensured that her love of Chicago was passed down, mandating for many years that the family spend two months each summer in Glencoe, to escape the Richmond heat and humidity (and the challenges it posed for her curly hair) and, more importantly, to spend time with her parents, with Kathy and her family, and with her many Chicago friends. During those trips, she delighted in "babysitting" for her niece Molly, taking her swimming and to play tennis, and even teaching her the secrets of Spoons.

Martha was a proud movie-buff, spending years amassing an expansive VCR collection of classic films and religiously watching the Oscars. She loved reading (including The New Yorker, cover-to-cover, never skipping an issue), listening to NPR, visiting art museums, and listening to music (though she could not personally carry a tune if her life had depended on it). She loved chocolate (babka and gelato in particular), made a perfectly fluffy matzah ball, and took enormous pride in the beautiful pumpkin chiffon pie she made each Thanksgiving. She wrote endearingly corny rhyming "odes" to her family and friends to celebrate birthdays and milestones. She was a committed Democrat, volunteering for national and local candidates; a personal highlight was shaking hands with Hillary Clinton after a rally during the 1992 presidential election campaign—and, of course, using her 10 seconds to tell Hillary that they shared Chicago roots. And she was a relentless collector of memorabilia and souvenirs, exhaustively capturing her life and her family's lives in diaries of visitors hosted and parties thrown, in meticulously labeled photo albums, and in binders tracking David's educational, athletic, and professional moments of note (and not-so-of-note) in archival-level detail.

With Clive's steadfast and selfless support and care, Martha bravely fought Parkinson's for more than a decade. She delighted in David's marriage to Elise (the New Yorker-reading Jewish daughter-in-law of Martha's dreams); in more travel adventures with Clive and reunions with friends; and in her new title of Grammy, after the birth of her two granddaughters, Sasha and Cara, in 2020 and 2022. She peacefully passed away with Clive at her side on February 25, 2024, at Larmax Homes in McLean, Virginia, where she moved in 2023—and of course became a favorite of the staff that cared for her.

Martha is survived and missed by her devoted husband, Clive, her son, David K. Baumgarten, his wife, Elise Baumgarten, and her two grandchildren, Sasha Baumgarten and Cara Baumgarten, all of Washington, D.C.; her sister, Kathy Kishner, and her husband Stuart Ryder, of Wilmette, IL; her niece, Molly Schiller, and her husband, Jacob, of Evanston, IL; and her many friends.

A graveside funeral service will be held at Judean Memorial Gardens, in Olney, Maryland, at 10:00 am on Friday, March 1, and the family will sit shiva at David and Elise's home following the service until sundown on Friday.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Parkinson's and Movement Disorders Center at MCV or Biden for President .