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ElderBerries Remembrance Day event 2018
May 4, 1923 - October 18, 2024
Born William Patrick Martinson, Patricia went out to sea “for the love of sailing” as a child in small dinghies off the coast of Northern Ireland.
She joined the army after the Second World War broke out, then transferred to the Indian navy. Martinson was in India on April 14, 1944, when the SS Fort Stikine exploded on the Bombay docks destroying 13 other ships and killing over 800 people.
“I was in the naval dockyard which was about one mile away and I saw and I felt and I heard the whole thing.”
After the navy, Martinson continued to work on the ocean with tankers and supply ships, immigrating to Canada in 1952.
“Sailing on the ocean can be delightful, it can be bloody awful, it can be very dangerous. It can be very good: I’ve (been on) two or three ships where I almost would have done it for nothing.”
Martinson transitioned to a woman in 1980.1
On her death, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic wrote: We remember our dear friend, Patricia Martinson, who recently passed at the age of 101 years. Patricia was prominently featured in our 2019 exhibit, The Sea in Her Blood, showcasing contemporary women and their amazing life stories. She was a dedicated heritage interpreter and generous museum volunteer who shared her time, knowledge, and love of the sea. Our condolences to her family and friends. We will miss you.
While aboard the ship bringing her as an Irish immigrant to Canada in 1952, Patricia Martinson gave up poetry until the mid-1970s. For the next forty years, she never stopped writing. Her more recent poems focus on a variety of topics including mishaps at sea, weather, people, ships, travels and partings during her decades-long career in the merchant navy.
On January 14, 2018 she brought her book of works to an Elderberries Second Sunday Salon and she and others read some of the poems. Here are a couple captured on video:
On May 4, 2020 a team of ElderBerries planned a non-contact flash sing outside of Patricia's window. Things didn't go as planned. AnitaMartinez takes it up: