In the late 1980’s Martina, her husband Hank, and a few other Communist Party members operated the John Reed Bookstore on Hawthorne Boulevard. In the 1930’s she was employed by the Public Works of Art program where she did watercolors, block prints and a wood carving for Timberline lodge.
Three photos of Martina are included in Portland’s Hawthorne Boulevard, two of which were collected by the Portland Police Bureau Red Squad which surveilled her for years. Portland State University Professor David Horowitz has written an excellent short biography of Martina .
I was privileged to work with Martina in the 1970’s in the Trojan Decommissioning Alliance and she was an inspiration to me. She was a bridge between the radical organizing of the 1930’s and the socialist and progressive movements of the 1970’s and 80’s. A working-class woman who attended Franklin High School in Southeast Portland, she lived in poverty for much of her childhood. Her political views and her activism restrained the commercial success that her art deserved. She was a freethinker.
The story of Martina’s life and work are important to my book because they help to illustrate the part of Hawthorne history that has little to do with the buildings.