Obituary of Martha Emmert

Martha V. Emmert leaves a legacy of family. Martha V. Emmert passed away at her home surrounded by her loving family on Wednesday morning, October 4, 2006. Martha was born in Revere, the daughter of the late Oswald and Elsie Sybertz. Martha and Bob met at the Oceanview Ballroom in Revere. The beginning of a lifetime of their joy in dancing together. They were married in June of 1953. They settled in Burlington where they raised their 5 children. Martha had worked for many years as a bookkeeper at Russ Craft Company, in Boston. She also worked with her husbands company, T.J. Edwards Co. for several years. Martha’s life centered around taking care of her family and home. She traveled quite extensively with her husband. She loved and was proud of her children and grandchildren. The time she spent with them was her greatest treasure. She will be lovingly remembered by her family and friends. Martha is the beloved wife of 53 years of Robert J. Emmert. She is the loving mother of Donald Emmert & his wife Clare of China, Pamela & her husband David O’Neill of Byfield, Kathy Emmert & Peter Clifford of Gloucester, Laure & her husband Robert Morgan of Nashua,NH, Robert Emmert & his wife Brenda of Lowell. She is the sister of Ruth Sweeney of Malden, Pauline & her husband James Dion of Burlington, Anita Sybertz of Reading, and the late Elsie Lyons and Arline DeAmelio. She is the devoted grandmother of Michael O’Neill, Kerri O’Neill, Gregory Emmert, Derek Morgan and Amy Morgan. She is also survived by many loving nieces & nephews and friends. Funeral from the Edward V. Sullivan Funeral Home, 43 Winn St., BURLINGTON (Exit 34 off Rt. 128, Woburn side) on Saturday, October 7 at 9 a.m. Followed by a Mass of Christian Burial in St. Margaret’s Church, 111 Winn St., Burlington at 10 a.m. Visiting hours Friday 4-8 p.m. Interment in Pine Haven Cemetery, Burlington. Memorials in Martha’s name may be made to the Reading Scholarship Foundation, Inc., Permanent Memorial Fund of Alyssa Dion, P.O. Box 492, Reading, MA 01867. Eulogy First let me thank all of you for coming here this Saturday morning as we celebrate the life of our Grandmother, a loving wife and mother, a sister, an aunt, a friend and world traveler extraordinaire: Martha Victoria Emmert. Standing here, we are your grandchildren- Greg, Kerri, Derek, and Amy, and me, Michael. In this room, sits your husband, Bob, your wonderful and amazing children, Donny, Pam, Laure, Kathy, and Bobby, your beautiful sisters, Pauline and Anita, your family, your friends, and your loved ones. We have all come together through one mutual connection, and that is the love we share for you Grammy. We love you. We love you by whatever name we call you. We love you Grammy. We love you Martha Victoria Emmert. We love you Ma. We love you Aunty Martha. Look around you, you gave us your love and today we are here because we still love you back. We are her grandchildren and Grammy is the name we call her. Today, we want to tell you why we love our grandmother. A day at Grammy and Pa’s was like a dream come true. The morning would be bright and crisp, and we would run ahead of our parents up the front steps to the door. Grammy was already there, and she would swing the door open and have the most surprised look on her face. She would place her hands on her hips and ask, Did you drive down here all by yourselves. Giggling, we would say, Nooooo, and point to our parents straggling behind us. It wasn’t until our sixteenth birthday that we could finally say ,yes, we did drive down there all by ourselves. (In which case she no longer got in the car with us.) After the greatest welcome in the world, we went inside where she had some tea and graham crackers with butter ready for us. Bob Barker and The Price is Right, or as she would call it, Come on Down, was playing on the television. And there, enshrined in all its porcelain mastery laid the coveted sugar bowl in the center of table. If you should ever want to know what true love is, ask us up here because we know. Every morning, our Grandmother would let us lick our finger, dip it into the sugar bowl, and let the sweet, sugary goodness run up and down our taste buds. But that was the greatest thing about Grammy- she learned the secret talk between a grandparent and a grandchild. What is this talk? What is this ability to have grandparents and grandchildren always gang up against the parents? Well it’s simple, whenever our parents would say ,no, Grammy would say, Yes. For instance, there was this bell. Grammy liked to spoil us and get us comfortable and settled in. We would sit and watch television and if we ever needed anything, all we would have to do is ring that little bell. Then Grammy would come running to us and get us whatever we needed. This was a perfect little system. Unfortunately, the bell always had a habit to be broken when we used it back at home. Grammy loved to take care of us. She played with us, gave us all the attention as if we were the only grandchildren in the world. And she also let us get messy. Our favorite time of the day came just a little after noon. She would take out the flour, water, sugar, starch, syrups, food coloring or whatever else we wanted and we did our experiments. Oh what delightful concoctions we created with her (even though most of them were just some form of dough with the flour and water) but we were scientists, and I am still a little sore we didn’t get the call this week for the Nobel Prize. I still swear to this day I created some form of edible, chocolate rubber that doubles as a mouth rinse. But Grammy would leave those experiments in the freezer until we wanted to take them out or feed it to our parents. The record ever held was by Amy Morgan, whose experiment was left in the freezer for about three years. Aunty Kathy used to come over and say, Ma, what is this in the freezer. I think it is moving. Don’t touch that, Grammy would say, That is Amy’s experiment. And so it stayed. No one really knows what happened to that experiment. And at the end of the day, when our parents would come to pick us up, Grammy was really sad to see us go. She picked us up and kissed our foreheads and said the same thing to us every day, Quantuse bella, which I believe means how beautiful you are. And we would say this right back to her, because my grandmother was beautiful. She was beautiful in the way she looked. She was beautiful in the way she spoke. She was beautiful in the way she loved us. And when we drove away from Grammy and Pa’s, she would flash the lights and yell Come back, Come back. And we did, the very next day. Earlier we called Grammy a world traveler extraordinaire. And that is true. But while she did travel all over Europe, she would always call herself a homebody- she loved her family and wherever she went she made that place her own. And that is why the whole world over would love to visit her, and why her grandchildren loved her, because she made us feel like we were at home. She was a true grandmother. She was a true mother. And she was a true wife. So it was not too hard to see why our Grandfather, even after fifty-three years of marriage, was in love with the one true woman that, even if he traveled half-way around the world, had that special thing to always draw him home. We can only hope that we may find just half the love our grandparents had for each other, and that after fifty-three years of marriage we can look into another’s eyes and share a lifetime of happiness. We think it is important now to acknowledge this love, and acknowledge a man that we are proud to call our grandfather. He is a man that cherished those precious things dear to his heart- his wife and five children. And when his wife needed him most, that love gave him the strength of character to go beyond all calls of duty and give her every last bit of his devotion. When we talk today of true heroes, of men we admire, we talk about our grandfather, who in our eyes took care of Grammy and made sure she was the happiest, luckiest, and most loved wife and grandmother of all. Pa, we love you for what you did and we say thank you for how you were always there to help and love our grandmother. Grammy is a woman we will miss, but she will always stay with us. She will stay with us through the memories we share and the stories we tell. She will stay in our hearts, and live on through our prayers. She will always be there to open that door or slide us that sugar bowl. When we make experiments with our children, we will think of her, we will eat spaghettios, drink tea, and watch the game shows. We will do this, simply because we cannot do otherwise. Her love was infectious and it is burning inside all of us. How can we not want to make others feel the same way Grammy made us feel? Every night when she would put her own children to bed, or when we would stay over and she would put us to bed, Grammy would recite our prayers, put out the lights, and say, You kids are good. Well Grammy, we just wanted you to know that we think you’re good too. We love you.