Martha Ida Rockers was born on April 23, 1926. Her father, Edward Rockers and her mother, Magdalena Wolken Rockers lived in Scipio, Kan. There were 11 children in her family. She was in the middle with five older and five younger siblings. They were LaVera, who died at 6 weeks of age, Florence, Elva, Elmer, Kenneth, Theresa, Raymond, Dennis, Martin, Hilda and Agnes.
She attended the East Scipio public school for grades one through four and was taught by the Ursuline Sisters. In the fifth and sixth grades, she attended the one room West Scipio School, where there were no Ursulines, then returned to East Scipio for the seventh and eighth grades.
Martha became a postulant in the Ursuline Community in Paola, Kan., on July 7, 1940, at the age of 16. She entered the novitiate on January 2, 1942, and was given the name Sister Mary Martina. Later it was changed to Sister Martina. She knew from an early age what she wanted to do with her life.
In 1946, she began her ministry of teaching, which lasted for 67 years, all in Kansas. She taught at Queen of the Holy Rosary Grade School in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. She taught the first four grades at Queen of the Holy Rosary, then moved up to fifth and sixth grade. Other schools where she taught were St. Ann School in Prairie Village, St. Agnes School in Roeland Park, Ursuline Academy in Paola, St. Agnes High School in Roeland Park, and Bishop Miege High School, Roeland Park.
Sister Martina continued to go to school herself. She had a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in math. She received a Master’ s degree from Notre Dame in Zoology and a minor in Botany. After that she studied something every summer at some very prestigious schools — St. Louis University, Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, Loretto Heights in Denver, Boston College, State University in Potsdam, N.Y., Florida State University, in Europe, and Emporia State. She never stopped learning, so she could give as much as she could to her students.
Sister Martina’s only other ministry as an Ursuline Sister was her tenure as a councilor on the Community’s leadership team from 1978-1982.
Sister Martina Rockers, 92, died June 5, 2018, in Olathe, Kan., in her 76th year of religious life. The funeral Mass was at 10:30 a.m. June 11 at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Roeland Park. Burial was in the Ursuline Cemetery in Paola.