Martha Beidler

On May 17, 2021, her 93rd birthday, Martha Sisley Beidler passed away gently with family at her side. She loved her family and her many extended families – her students and fellow teachers, generations who passed through Geneva Hills Church Camp, church communities, neighbors and many more. There will be a memorial service at a future date.

Martha will be remembered by all those families for the kind twinkle in her eyes as she upheld her dignity and poise while enjoying the love that surrounded her. After graduating from Grove City College, Grove City PA., Martha, who grew up in New Kensington, PA, began her teaching career in nearby Pittsburgh, PA. She continued teaching while serving the Pressley Memorial Institute (PMI) in Asyut, Egypt from 1951-1954. Martha Sisley and Reverend Richard Beidler were married in Alexandria, Egypt in 1954 and returned to the United States to start a family, moving to East Liverpool, Ohio and serving the Yellow Creek Presbyterian Church. The Beidlers then moved to West Rushville, Ohio in 1959 to serve the Rushcreek Presbyterian Church and Geneva Hills Church Camp. Martha resumed her teaching career at Fairfield Union High School and later Lancaster High School. Mrs. Beidler was a beloved and honored teacher of English, French, Latin and Mythology, a teacher whom students regularly came back to visit. Her students excelled in multiple academic competitions. During her teaching career she received a master’s degree in French at The Ohio State University and the Sorbonne in Paris. Martha was active in Delta Kappa Gamma academic sorority. She loved leading Lancaster High School students on backpack and bicycle trips through Europe in the 70’s. She happily filled in as women’s track coach at Lancaster High School. Her last formal teaching occurred in Lithuania where she worked for a summer teaching English to Lithuanian teachers. She loved languages and was fluent in French, Arabic and Latin. Martha was a fearless adventurer and an immersive learner, whose quest for knowledge and profound curiosity carried her by camel to The Great Pyramids of Giza and to isolated desert wadis; by bicycle across England, Scotland and Wales (attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II), by steamer up the Nile and across East Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (a climb interrupted by charging wild elephants), and by train and bus across the Holy Land. She backpacked and paddled a canoe across international borders in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Quetico Provincial Park. She had four wolfhounds, was a published poet and talented artist, loved teaching piano and playing the piano and organ at her beloved Rushcreek Presbyterian Church, and had a beautiful soprano singing voice. She was a blue-ribbon gardener, canner and food dryer. She learned to play the dulcimer that she asked Richard to build for her. She loved winters camping on Alligator Point, Florida and her dear church friends at Ochlocknee Bay Methodist Church. She was brilliant, dynamic and beautiful. She loved books and knew something about everything. She was sweet and kind and met her declining years with grace and gratitude.

She was predeceased by her parents, John Robert Sisley Sr. and Helen Tinker Sisley, her brother John Robert Sisley Jr., and her dear husband of 61 years, Reverend Richard Beidler. She is survived by children, Anne Beidler (Jon Neiditz), Mary Beidler Gearen and James Gearen, and son James (Lori) Beidler, grandchildren Rachel and Macklin Beidler, Molly Gearen, and Hannah and Qiu Qing Neiditz.