ALTAMONT — Rose M. Martin is remembered by her children as a woman who never had a bad word to say about anyone and who taught them to be kind. 

Mrs. Martin “passed away peacefully on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, with her loving family by her side,” her family wrote in a tribute. She was 90. 

Mrs. Martin was a woman of faith who loved cooking, baking, and crocheting. 

The daughter of the late Anthony and Josephine (née Orsini) Femia, Mrs. Martin grew up in Altamont, where she took care of her four younger siblings, doing the laundry and cooking for them after their mother became ill.

“She did a lot of work all her life, and never complained,” said her son, Mark Martin. 

Mrs. Martin was a devoted wife to her husband, the late Raymond J. Martin, her family wrote. The two were married for 58 years. 

Mr. Martin was from Albany. They met at a dance at the Polish Community Center, her son said. “As soon as he saw her, he knew she was the one; there was something different about her,” he said. 

When she married, Mrs. Martin moved into a house just five houses up from the one where she was raised, said her daughter Lisa Scholz. 

“She really loved Altamont and living in Altamont,” Mrs. Scholz said. “I always said she just took her suitcase up the road.” 

Mrs. Martin was a homemaker who loved baking and cooking for her family. She could bake anything, her children said, and she was especially known for her breads, pizza dough, and rolls. 

Mrs. Martin would walk up the street to Altamont Elementary School, where she served as the “lunch lady,” her children said. She loved working in the school’s lunchroom and being around the children, they said; she did that until her husband retired and the couple began to travel.  

After being a congregant at St. Lucy’s Church during most of her life, Mrs. Martin began attending Christ the King Church in her later years, when she moved to Guilderland. 

She was a past member of the Guilderland Elks Lodge Ladies’ Auxiliary and was an Ambassador with the Albany Airport.

One of her passions, said Mrs. Scholz, was crocheting “teeny-tiny hats” for premature babies at Albany Medical Center.

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Rose M. Martin is survived by her children, Diane Scott, Lisa Scholz and her husband, Christopher, and Mark Martin and his wife, Patricia; by her grandchildren, Danielle, Alissa, Emily and her husband, Jacob, and Kyle; and by her sister, Mary Page, and her brother, Peter Femia, and his wife, Valerie.

Her parents, Anthony and Josephine (née Orsini) Femia, died before her, as did her husband, Raymond, and her brothers, Joseph and Fiore Femia.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Saturday, Sept. 28, at 10 a.m. at Christ The King Church at 20 Sumter Ave. in Guilderland.

The family will begin gathering at 9:30 a.m. at the church. Interment will follow the Mass at Our Lady of Angels Cemetery in Colonie.

Mourners may leave condolences online at altamontenterprise.com/milestones.

The family thanks “all of her caregivers over the past two years for their dedication and compassion given to her and her family; she truly loved all of them,” the tribute said.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Altamont Community Food Pantry, 122 Grand St., Altamont, NY 12009.

— Elizabeth Floyd Mair