Vancouver, Washington

Aug. 25, 1926 — Aug. 27, 2024

Words from Martha McCourt’s children after she passed away Aug. 27: “She was the nicest person I have known.” “Lover and supporter of the Portland opera. Loved a social game of bridge.” “Mom was my soul mate and spirit guide.” “Always creative and friendly.”

Martha Josephine Fletcher was born Aug. 25, 1926, in Anaheim, California, while her parents were visiting her mother’s brothers in Southern California. Martha is the daughter of Anna Marie Bruff and Arthur Ransford Fletcher of El Paso, Texas.

Martha’s father was a geologist and mining engineer, and the family lived in Torreon, Mexico, until 1929, when they moved to Government Hill, in El Paso. Martha and her sister, Anna Katherine, and brother, William Ransford Fletcher, attended El Paso schools, Coldwell Elementary School and Austin High School.

Martha attended the University of Wisconsin, graduated with honors, and married her college sweetheart, James Earl McCourt, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in El Paso. He served in the U.S. Army 42nd Rainbow Division in World War II, rising to the rank of sergeant and receiving a Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters. Jim was a chemical engineer and paper machine expert for Crown Zellerbach Paper Corp. for over 30 years. He passed away Nov. 18, 1997, at 72, in Vancouver, Washington.

Martha got interested in genealogy while living in Lake Oswego. It started with taking old family photographs dating back to the Civil War and making a pictorial family tree. Over the years, she had several of her genealogical researches published, “Descendants of James McCourt/John McKenney/Mathew Young” (1988), “Descendants of John Smith” (1997) and finally a five-volume series “The American Descendants of Henry Luce of Martha’s Vineyard,” completed in 1999. She researched, documented, published and financed these efforts.

As part of her dedication to genealogy, she became active in the Astoria chapter of Oregon’s Daughters of the American Revolution as chapter regent and also as Oregon State DAR public relations chairman. She held Oregon state offices in the National Society Colonial Dames XVII Century. She served several years as the Oregon State Mayflower historian-registrar for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. She type-scripted the printing of Oregon State Mayflower Register, which gives the genealogical descent of all of the society members in the state of Oregon.

While living in Knappa/Svensen, a small-town east of Astoria, she occasionally wrote articles for The Daily Astorian newspaper and that led to doing feature articles for several coastal papers. Occasionally, she wrote feature articles, obituaries or local interest stories for The Oregonian in Portland, The Columbian in Vancouver and the Camas Post in Camas, Washington.

Following her husband’s death in 1997, she became active in the Newcomer Association in Vancouver in order to meet new friends and make a new life for herself. She joined several interest groups and played contract and duplicate bridge four days a week. She moved to Touchmark at Fairway Village in 2015, near Fishers Landing in Vancouver. She enjoyed reading, playing bridge and doing crossword puzzles; she said these pastimes kept her brain alert.

She is survived by her four children, who are all happily married with children of their own. James “Mick” Earl McCourt Jr. married childhood friend, April Jane (Carmack) Reinhard; they live in Eugene. They have two children, Heidi and James. Marianna Luce McCourt married Troy P. Gilbertson, and they own/run a farm in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and they have two children, Marguerite and Fletcher. Kathleen Fletcher McCourt married her Lewis & Clark College sweetheart, Christopher B. Ullom. They have two children, Emily and William. Ransford “Randy” Stephen McCourt married Kathy Cole, a dress designer whom he met in Danville, California. They live in Portland, and have two children, Matthew and Laura.

Martha’s father led a colorful life. He was an El Paso geologist, considered by many as the world’s leading authority on limestone formations. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Stanford’s earthquake class of 1906 with an English literature degree; and from Columbia University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in geology and mining engineering.

He sailed with the U.S. Geodetic Survey ship charting maps of the Philippine Islands, holding the honorary rank of captain. He had a sugar business in Cuba; he sold his sugar holdings prior to the Great Depression. He served many mining corporations in South America, Mexico and the Southwest U.S., in the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona areas, as geologist.

While returning from a geologic survey trek in the Chihuahua Mountains with his burro, his equipment, his rum and cigars, he came across an injured man who had been left to die by the federales in a skirmish with the villistas. “Ran” helped the man on to his burro and they stumbled into Pancho Villa’s camp. If you are interested, the rest of the story is in on page 285 of “The American Descendants of Rev. John Smith” (1997).

Her mother, Anna Marie Bruff Fletcher, was also a free spirit. A Quaker, she taught Latin and Greek in a California private school before going to Cochabamba, Bolivia, to marry Ran in May 1921. In El Paso, she was founder and champion of Planned Parenthood, which was considered very controversial in the 1930s and 1940s. She met Ran when she visited her brother, Russell Bruff, in California, which he did when he came up from his mining work in Bolivia. He was impressed that she both could drive a Model T Ford and change its tires. She sailed half-way around the world to marry him in Bolivia.

During World War II, Ran had a great number of international friends. At least one of them was an atomic scientist from Los Alamos, New Mexico, who would occasionally be granted leave from his work to travel to El Paso. One summer, when the Fletchers were entertaining him, Martha recalled asking her father, “Who are those strange men sitting outside on our front steps?” He told her they were government agents detailed to watch the atomic scientists to see they returned safely back to their base in Los Alamos.

The Fletchers reared their children, Bill, Kitty and Monkey, as they were known, along with Jane Riley, whose mother had remarried and her stepfather was agreeable to have his wife’s son join the Army, and her daughter, Jane, to live with the family.

Margaret Morris also spent the school year living with the family. She was a daughter of Anthur W. Morris, a mining friend of Martha’s father. Martha spent the summer vacation living with Margaret’s family in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Many news articles were written about both Martha’s mother and father, and copies were reproduced in her book “The American Descendants of Rev. John Smith, who married 13 June 1643 Susanna Hinckley” (see pages: 285A-285N), along with copies of old letters, documents and samples of her father’s verse. He published three volumes of them, and his love of the strength of the English language is evident in his poetry “Poems by a Mining Engineer,” “The Hidden Hemisphere,” and “Paint Jobs and Tune Ups.”