Martha passed away early Thursday morning at the Elm Heights Care Center in Shenandoah.

Martha Anna Appel was born on October 11, 1920 to August and Augusta Vestfall Appel in East Hartford, Connecticut . It was in this area that she attended grade school, high school and eventually college where she was a member of the sigma Lamba sorority.

Martha married Glen Edwards from Shenandoah, Ia on July 28, 1946 at the Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon, New York. At the time of the wedding, Martha was working as a tour guide at the Rockefeller Center in New York City and Glen had just been discharged as a first lieutenant in the US Army Air Corp. Following a week long honeymoon at Bell Harbor, Long Island the couple came back to the Shenandoah area to make their home on a farm south of Shenandoah where she enjoyed being a farm wife. Martha resided on the farm until moving to Elm Heights Care Center in 1998.

Martha is preceded in death by both her parents, husband Glen Edwards and brother Gary Appel. She is survived by nieces and nephews.