Martha F. (Myers) Lace

Martha F. Low Lace, 102, formerly of Natrona Heights, passed away at Longwood at Oakmont on Friday, July 20, 2018.  She was born in 1916 in Stinesville, Indiana, site of a limestone mill and quarry amidst the lands her family had farmed continuously since 1820.  Her parents, Robert E. and Odessa Cooter Myers, brought his family to Bloomington, the seat of Monroe County and Indiana University.  She graduated from Bloomington High School and attended Indiana, majoring in chemistry and minoring in math and German. With the help of a professor, she found a job as technical librarian for General Electric in Pittsfield, MA.

The following year Martha moved to Oakmont Pennsylvania, using her French, German and English as a patent researcher for Alcoa at its laboratory in New Kensington, with travel to New York City and Washington, D.C. In 1938 she was sent to Europe for research. In 1939, she and her boss, S. Ernest “Peter” Low, a Canadian engineer and patent attorney, were married and she gave up her job. When war broke out in Europe, he was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Martha joined him in Montreal and Saskatchewan until he left for England. She went to her parents’ home in Bloomington, Indiana where she worked as an accountant for her father who ran a wholesale grocery business. There she gave birth to their only child, Heather Jane.

At the end of the war, Peter came to Indiana to see his wife and child and then returned to Alcoa in New Kensington.  A year later, they finally found a house in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, across the river. Martha became a busy freelance writer, publishing children and travel stories, editing and writing for a book commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.  She was an energetic volunteer in school and hospital groups, as well as a deacon in the Natrona Heights Presbyterian church.  She was a passionate player and fan of golf, a serious contract bridge player, and an Emeritus Member (and past president) of the Tarentum Book Club.

Widowed in 1984, Martha married Richard E. Lace, MD, in 1993 and joined him at Longwood where both remained very active until a few years before Dr. Lace’s death in 2009. She is survived by her daughter, Heather Low Ruth, Heather’s husband, Jim, and their son, Douglass, and his wife, Eve Klein, MD.

All services and burial will take place privately. Arrangements are under the care of the ROBERT PETERS FUNERAL HOME, INC., 1521 Freeport Road, Natrona Heights, PA  15065 (724-224-7730).

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Martha F. (Myers) Lace, please visit our floral store.