Martha Jane Macomber
Martha Jane Macomber, 89, known to family and friends as Janie, passed away March 18, 2009, from Alzheimer’s.
Born in Detroit on Feb. 1, 1920, to Newton Warner and Martha Hensey Collord, she was a teenage Girl Scout lifeguard and swimming became a lifelong form of relaxation.
She graduated in 1938 from Central High School in Detroit and in 1942 from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, with a degree in Spanish. She was a member of Sigma Delta Pi, the Spanish language honorary society. During her senior year, she was president of her sorority.
Shortly after graduating, she married her college sweetheart, Robert “Bob” C. Macomber, and they went on to raise a family of four children in Canton, Ohio, where her husband became one of the most noted structural steel engineers in the nation.
In 1963 they moved to the small town of Cape Coral as modern day pioneers, where she and Bob started a steel business in Fort Myers, ROMAC Steel Co., Inc., that developed into an international success. She worked as her husband’s secretary for many years, and in the early ’60s, volunteered as a “Gray Lady” nurse at Tropical Isles Elementary in North Fort Myers.
Sharing her husband’s love for aviation, Mrs. Macomber graduated from the AOPA’s Pinch-Hitter and Survival courses, and flew with him throughout the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and the Bahamas.
She loved her family, sharing adventures with her devoted husband; her children, Mary Jane Herman Morris, Richard C. (Alice Ann) Macomber, Lawrence C. Macomber and Robert N. Macomber; nine grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.
The family will receive friends Monday, March 23, from 1-2 p.m., and a memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m. at the Harvey-Engelhardt-Metz Funeral Home, 1600 Colonial Blvd., Fort Myers.
Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Diabetes Association or a charity of choice.