Martha Morris Storm

Thursday, 05 November 2009 10:37

Martha Morris Storm, a Michigan Road resident for 35 years, died Friday, October 30, at her home in South Carolina. She was 96.

Born Dec. 5, 1912, in Augusta, Ga., to Harry and Alice Kuhlke Morris, Mrs. Storm was the widow of T. Walton Storm, who died in 2003. They were married for 66 years. Mr. Storm volunteered as director of investments for the Town of New Canaan for many years, after retiring as an executive with the General Electric Co.

Mrs. Storm, an avid reader, graduated in 1933 at the age of 20, from Smith College, where she studied art and English, exercising a love of language and visual imagery that she maintained to the end of her life, said her family.

Through the 1930s, she worked as a secretary at the Columbia Broadcasting System. She spoke fondly of such pioneer newscasters as Eric Sevareid, family members added.

The high (or perhaps low) point of her career came in November 1938, said her family, when CBS executives, including the legendary William S. Paley, met to discuss company reaction to a widespread panic caused by a broadcast of “War of the Worlds” that many radio listeners thought was a true report of Martians invading the United States. Mrs. Storm was requested to record the meeting in shorthand.

She left CBS before the birth of her first son Derek in 1941. The Storms lived in New Canaan for 35 years before moving to the Country Club of North Carolina in 1989.

Mrs. Storm was an avid gardener, a member of both the New Canaan Garden Club and the Garden Center of New Canaan. Her plants and flowers won numerous awards at the organizations’ annual shows. She was also a long-time member of the New Canaan Sewing Group.

In addition to gardening, Mrs. Storm loved to watch the host of birds that would come and go through the seasons at her home, a love that continued until her death, family members said.

“Her favorite was a one-legged female mallard duck that returned for many years to the pond outside her kitchen window, raising brood after brood despite her handicap,” they added.

In the 1960s, Mrs. Storm experienced the first symptoms of depression that would plague her sporadically for the rest of her life. To help combat it, family members said she revived a passion for painting that had lain dormant since college. She sold several paintings over the years, and her work is in the homes of many friends, relatives and acquaintances.

In addition to Derek Walton Storm, who lives in Seattle, Wash., Mrs. Storm is survived by a second son, Jonathan Morris Storm of Ringoes, N.J., and two grandchildren, Linda Elizabeth Storm and Jeffrey Walton Storm, both of Seattle.

A celebration of her life will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, November 7, in the Fordham Room at Belle Meade in Southern Pines, S.C.