Martha Lee Andrews

Martha was born in Schenectady, NY to Margaret and John Tuthill. The family moved to Natick, MA when she was young and it became Martha’s home town. She was the valedictorian of her 1956 High School class and enrolled at Northwestern University 1956-1958, leaving to transfer to Clark University so she could be near her mother who was ill. At Clark she heard a lecture about the climate at the South Pole, approached the speaker, and that summer spent her time digitizing the South Pole analog (paper) records on an early computer. Her interest in Polar regions led her to apply and be accepted at the Geography Department at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She arrived in Montreal in September 1960, and there met John Andrews, who had just returned from a field season on the Labrador coast. A happy courtship ensued, and they were married in December, 1961. Martha was taken to meet John’s family in the mining town of Millom (pop. 7000) in Cumberland (NW England) where she was quickly adopted by John’s family.

Martha visited Millom many times and although an “off comer,” she and John chose to have their ashes taken back to the area because of its peace and quiet and their long-running connection to it.

Martha obtained her MA from McGill, undertaking a study landscape changes of one of Vermont’s eastern counties. John accepted a job with the Canadian government and they moved to Ottawa in 1962. Martha worked at Carleton University in Ottawa supervising lab exercises but also started to work abstracting Arctic research papers for the Arctic Bibliography. A daughter, Melissa, was born in February 1967, and they moved to Boulder, CO in 1968 as John had accepted a job at the University of Colorado. Martha obtained an MA in Library Science om 1973 from the University of Denver. She had given birth to Thomas, in 1972! Martha became the Research Librarian at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research 1973-2003. She was a friend and resource for many graduate students who learned library research skills from her. During her career she was at the forefront of establishing international polar and environmental data bases, and travelling for her work to Canada, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, the UK, and Alaska. She was a member the University Women’s Club and an active member of their French and Book Clubs.

She will be deeply missed by her family and numerous friends.