Martha Balch Reed

Martha Balch Sibley Reed died February 20th at the DuBose Health Center of The Cedars of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC, at the age of 89. The cause of death was abdominal cancer.

Martha Reed was born May 23rd 1936 in Beverly MA. She was the first child of Clifton Abbott Sibley and Rebecca Millett Sibley. She grew up in Marblehead MA and Hamilton MA. She attended Shore Country Day School and Northfield School, and graduated from Smith College with a BA degree in 1958. Also in 1958 she married Mark L. Reed, III, a native of Asheville, NC, with whom she was to have two daughters, now Victoria Fisher Reed Gless and Christina Pickering Reed Weatherspoon Dowdy. Later she received a MEd degree from UNC Chapel Hill. She was a gifted and successful Special Educator, helping people from pre-schoolers to retirees to significant improvement in reading ability and consequent improvement in personal life, educational progress, and business and professional careers. Some of her ex-patients wrote to her repeatedly in later years with warm thanks and personal engagement. Except for two separate years' residence in Cambridge, England, while her husband was on research fellowships, she made her home in Chapel Hill, NC.

She enjoyed travel on land and sea, especially ocean cruising in various parts of the world and Atlantic crossings between the US and Europe, which she began in 1960 on the RMS Mauretania II. She was an indefatigable swimmer, and was swimming a mile and three-quarters daily at age seventy-five when shoulder injuries forced her out of the water. She was an exceptionally talented cook, with a knack for assimilation of regional cuisines and development of "marriages" (remarkably satisfying matches) between foods and accompanying wines.

She is survived by her husband; her sister, Hannah Phippen Sibley Gray, of Cotuit, MA; her daughters; three grandchildren, Reed P. Dowdy, Hamilton D. Dowdy, both of Charlotte , NC, and Merrill B. Dowdy, of New York City; and one great-grandchild (with two others expected). Although her heart possibly remained in New England, it embraced North Carolina, the world, and her family, wherever, with love, intelligence, and often-forthrightly-expressed common sense. Her family and many of her acquaintances will miss her sadly and forever.

Memorial donations may be made to The Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem, MA 01970.

Arrangements are by Hall-Wynne Funeral Service, Durham, NC.