MARTINO, Mrs. Katherine (Sandy) Maas, 92, of Richmond, Virginia, died in her sleep on July 24, 2021. Sandy was born in Washington DC on January 20, 1929, months before the Great Depression that would devastate the country and commemorate the year she was born. She was the third daughter of Melvin (Mel) J. Maas and Catherine (Jimby) Bole Maas.
Sandy loved to tell the story of her birth, which almost wasn’t. How the doctor who thought she was stillborn (she weighed only 2.5 kg) threw her on the adjoining bed while tending to her sick mother (who would succumb to the flu shortly afterwards and little Katherine and her two) Leaving sisters motherless)). Only when the doctor later heard the baby scream did he call out: “My God, it is alive!”
Mel Maas would marry Katherine Baumer on December 1, 1934 and provide Sandy and her two sisters with not only a mother but also a little brother.
In addition to being an excellent major general in the United States Marine Corps, Sandy’s father was an eight-term US representative for the 4th Congressional District in Minnesota. Sandy often visited her father in his Capitol rooms and became a welcome presence in Congress. She would also attend more than one presidential inauguration, a date that made her January 20 a special event every four years. “The parade is in your honor,” her father told her with a twinkle in his eyes.
Sandy Maas graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1947 and from Sullins College, an all girls’ college in Bristol, Virginia, where she majored in art. More than seven decades later, Sandy could still recite all 33 lines of the gruff, rhythmic poem “The Persian Kitty,” which she and her fellow students sang on the college bus en route to their many after-school field trips.
Sandy met her future husband Tony C. Martino at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she studied fashion design, and Tony, painting, named after his father, Antonio P. Martino, a renowned painter who was aged more than 80 in his lifetime Awards honored.
Sandy was a great seamstress. She made most of her own dresses, as well as all of the ballet and jazz outfits her three daughters wore to their annual Elinor Fry School of Dance concerts. She loved dressing all five children in similar outfits for special occasions, including red and white striped pajamas for Christmas and pastel colored outfits for Easter. Her daughter Patty remembers her mother making her Gone With the Wind prom dress for her Gone With the Wind prom gown.
Sandy often told the story of the white sweaters she knitted for her five children, including their red names at pocket height. But then the family stopped at a rest stop on the way north to visit relatives, and a well-meaning woman told her that it was not a good idea for her children to have their names on their sweaters as a stranger could call out them and kidnap them easily. “All the work,” she said. “It was one of the most disappointing times of my life.”
Sandy knew the importance of well-made shoes. Every year she brought her children to Hofheimer to have their shoes adjusted by a Mr. Whipple guy who, instead of squeezing for softness, patted her toes and heels to ensure a snug fit. Metal supports were added when warranted.
After Sandy’s children grew up, Sandy turned her selfless energies to community service, including volunteering as a trainer for the Special Olympics, which was very important to her as she had a child with special needs of her own. Sandy’s second child, Katherine, wasn’t diagnosed with thyroid deficiency until she was two years old, though Sandy took her to specialist after specialist who knew something was wrong. Today, a thyroid check-up at birth is routine.
For nearly 20 years, Sandy worked with fellow Bible enthusiast Michael Michalowicz to offer Bible lessons to inmates at Henrico County’s West Regional Prison. Sandy, who was the Eucharistic Minister, offered communion to anyone who was interested. She did not force anyone to take communion and refused to shred uninvited confessions from inmates when asked to do so by the prison authorities. She had what she called a “dumb ear”. Sandy also donated the sacraments of Holy Communion at St. Mary’s Hospital and St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, where she was a long-time devoted member. One day she said to one of her daughters, “I have no idea what God looks like, but he or she is my best friend.” Our mother, the feminist. Who knew
Kristen Bryd concludes an article she wrote on Sandy, entitled “Octogenarian Brings God to Inmates,” which was published in The Catholic Virginian on October 22, 2018, with these philosophical words from Sandy:
“You get so full, you have to give something, don’t you
you will burst. That’s life: so are you
give or you take. I hope I am not gaining weight
a lot of life. I hope I give more. ”
Previously deceased from her husband Tony C. Martino; her two older sisters Patricia (Pat) Maas Bennett and Marianne (Mike) Maas Catterton; and grandson Nicholas (Nic) Martino; Sandy is survived by a half-brother, Joe Maas; five children, Marty Martino, Katherine Spencer, Patty Martino Alspaugh, Judy Mason, and Robert Martino; and four grandchildren, Roddy Martino, Lauren Mason, Rob Mason and Tarah Martino. All of Sandy’s children could visit her in the last week of their lives.
A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, August 4, at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 9505 Gayton Road, Richmond, Virginia, 23229.
Contributions can be made to the Visitation Monastery in Georgetown to commemorate Sandy.
Published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch on August 1, 2021.