Martha Stallings Line

Martha Jean Stallings was born in 1935 to G. L. Stallings and Martha Austin Williams of Spartanburg, South Carolina. After her father’s death in 1943, Martha’s mother married an Army lawyer who moved the family to Fremont, Nebraska. 

From early childhood, “Moppy,” as she was known to many friends, loved dogs, most recently her beloved basset hound, Barrymore.

A 1953 graduate of Fremont High School, where Martha earned awards for newspaper writing, she attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, where she was a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority. 

In January 1956, Martha returned to Fremont and married William Line, who was then serving as Dodge County Attorney. They welcomed four daughters during their 17-year marriage. When her daughters were small, Martha refined her hobbies of knitting and watercolor painting and was awarded a prize in the Nebraska Governor’s Art Show.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Martha resumed college studies and conducted independent academic research on the works and life of her favorite novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, culminating in trips to New York for interviews with the author’s daughter, Frances Scott Smith.

Martha returned to Omaha in the 1970s after her divorce to work as a freelance journalist, interviewing local and national celebrities for area publications and national wire services. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Martha was a sales agent for luxury hotel chains, enabling her to indulge her passion for world travel, a benefit she shared with family and friends, traveling to Europe, the Mediterranean, and Mexico. 

Martha partnered with her former husband to play competitive duplicate bridge, where the long-divorced but friendly couple competed in national and local bridge tournaments, earning Martha recognition as an American Contract Bridge League Life Master.

As Martha approached retirement, she embarked on a renewed faith journey and completed the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults at St. Leo’s Catholic Church, in Omaha, where she became an active parishioner and served as a Eucharistic Minister for several years, until limited by illness. 

Martha traveled often to Chicago to visit her children and grandchildren, quickly making friends wherever she went in the world and in Omaha. Martha valued each of those friendships, including those in her beloved book club. She charmed all she met with her sense of humor, beaming smile and playful spirit. 

Martha Stallings Line is beloved by her four daughters, Nancy (Nelson) Jacobs, Lindsey (Jon) Natvig, and Katherine Rasmussen, all of Omaha, and Julie Line of Chicago, as well as niece Rebecca (Peter Sevenair) Wakefield, of Providence, RI. Martha is adored by ten grandchildren: Andrew Rasmussen, Kiley (Josh) Meyer, Jordan Jacobs (Ashley) Jon (Emika) Natvig, Alex (Kylie) Rasmussen, Katherine Stallings Bailey, William Bailey, Nicholas Natvig, Patrick Bailey, and Jane Bailey. Martha is the proud great grandmother of seven and is also remembered fondly by many beloved cousins and friends. 

A Celebration of Life will be scheduled later in conjunction with her interment in Spartanburg, SC.

Memorials are suggested to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or St. Joseph's Indian School.