Alta Martin

Alta Delight Sterner Martin, daughter of Van Orren & Beulah Delight Howe Sterner, was born February 18, 1927, in Rochester, Iowa. On May 30, 1947, Alta was united in marriage to Harry Lee Martin in Tipton, Iowa. Alta worked for the FBI in Chicago during WWII. She was a proponent of naturalization of the Rochester Cemetery. Alta was the first female private pilot to solo in Muscatine County in 1966, and received a commemoration in the University of Iowa Women's Archives. Alta traveled the domestic US in her retirement years. Alta is loved and survived by her daughters, Linda Martin McConnell, of Iowa City, Iowa and Pamela Martin Gay, and husband, Robert, of Atlanta, Georgia; sons, Joseph Van Martin, and wife, Claire, of Peoria, Arizona, Michael Allen Martin, and wife, Roberta, of Dubuque, Iowa and Gary Lee Martin, and wife, Loretta, of Phoenix, Arizona; 8 grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren; and a brother, John Sterner,of Mt. Vernon, Iowa. She was preceded in death by her parents, Van Orren and Buelah Delight Sterner; her husband, Harry Lee Martin, on September 11, 2003; brothers, Dale Sterner, Lee Sterner and Warren Sterner; and sister, Edna Sterner Piontkowski.