Martha Maie Sanders Ficklen passed away at age 85 on January 2, 2023. Born Christmas Day, 1937, in Wilmington NC, she died in St. Louis MO on January 2, 2023, of dementia and hypertension. A Depression baby, Martha was the only child of Lois Carlton Sanders Vann and William Patterson Sanders. Always an admired student, her BA was from Atlantic Christian (now Barton) College in Wilson NC, her MA from Hampton Institute in Hampton VA. A master teacher especially of first-graders for 32 years in the public schools of Newport News VA and St. Louis MO (Hickey, Stowe, Yeatman, and Wyman), in later years Martha led colleagues in “Action Research” sponsored by St. Louis University. On occasion she taught language arts at Harris-Stowe State University, and in 1999 created a course in Lesbian Literature for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. 

With George Ficklen of Newport News, she was the proud parent of William George Edward (Ted) Ficklen, who married Amy Dooley and settled in University City; and Andrew Carlton Todd Ficklen, who married Carol Wilson and settled in Suffolk VA. Martha was the loving grandmother of their children: Simon, Ruby, and Lewis (and great-grandmother of Layla); and Elena and Joseph. An only child, mature beyond her years, Martha was valued by others, like cousin Kitty Jamieson of Wilmington, who writes “I hung on her every word” – and sister-in-law Susan Rawlins, now of Port Colborne, Ontario, who laments “a world without Marth” – not to forget artist and traveling pal, Melissa Marrs. Also, as a teen Martha “adopted” Toby Schnabel, a postwar child in Hamburg, Germany. 

With Nanora “Nan” Sweet in St. Louis, she joined yet another family, in St. Louis, including Jennifer “Jen” Sweet, Robert “bobEE” Sweet and his partner Betsy Kellerman and her grandchild Julia Whitaker — and John Sweet and John Forti. With her mother Lois’s second marriage (at 83) to Wilmington friend J. D. Vann, Martha gained still another family, that of her childhood friend “Danny” Vann. In her last years, Martha cared for Lois in in St. Louis, whose appears among memorial engravings on Trinity Episcopal Church CWE.  

Martha was a poet, artist, craftswoman, and prolific photographer. Most recently, her photos grace the queer women’s history posted on Trinity Episcopal’s website. As a poet, with Cherry Pie Press she published The Palm Leaf Fan, evocative of her childhood in Tidewater North Carolina and mature years in St. Louis. A leading member of the women’s poetry troupe Loosely Identified, she was a popular performer at Duff’s and elsewhere. Her editor Rebecca Elllis has posted some of Martha’s beguiling live readings on Nan’s Facebook page. 

A contributor especially of book reviews to generations of the LGBTQ press in St. Louis, Martha has been termed “an epic early influencer” (thank you, Rose Byrne!) in her community. In retirement, she audited courses every semester, especially in UMSL’s English Department. Her pioneering Lesbian Literature course at UMSL in 1999 inspired a dinner group, still going (thank you, Debra). This Happy Traveler visited all 48 contiguous states + Alaska and 15 European countries. Then, tragically slowed by arthritis and dementia, she was cared for at home with the help of Bob Puricelli’s Companion Care (thank you Bob, Lucy, Erin, Marcia, Dominique, Danzella, Judy, Joan, and more). She spent her last years in the warm and attentive Mother of Good Counsel Home on Natural Bridge in Northwoods. Look for her late poem “Nocturn” (2009) attached to this site. 

Her funeral will occur Saturday, March 11, at 10:30 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 600 N. Euclid, St. Louis MO 63108, followed by a reception in the south parish hall.

Contributions in her name might go to Trinity Episcopal Church, 600 N. Euclid, St. Louis MO 63108; Mother of Good Counsel Home, 6825 Natural Bridge, St. Louis MO 63121; or the Alzheimer’s Association, 9370 Olive, St. Louis MO 63132.

Nocturn

Thank you, Bathwater, oily and hot,

You’ve lulled me to torpor, limp as a flannel,

Limbs afloat, leaf-light, tensions uncoil.

Thank you, Cool Evening with streetlight stars.

Blackness drags its blanket over my head.

Dark’s old mouth with no teeth sucks me in.

Sleep creeps into my bed, cuddles close around me.

Thank you, Rest. Now you’re all I need.

Swallow me into the egg-sac of sleep.

MSFicklen, 2007