Martin Goodman

Martin Goodman, 98, April 3, 2024. The son of Fanny and David Goodman, Martin Goodman was born in Philadelphia, PA, on February 12, 1926. His younger sister, Dorothy, was born 3 years later. He was the first in his family to attend college, heading to Penn State on a bus in 1943. He left college to enlist in the Army Air Force on April 10, 1944. He completed his service in April 1946, after which he returned to Penn State, graduating with a major in mathematics.   He returned to Philadelphia and there met his future wife, Shirley Goldfarb. They became engaged and Martin went to work in Dayton Ohio as a civilian employee of the Air Materiel Command, part of the Army Air Force. Martin and Shirley married in September 1950 at the home of her parents. They honeymooned in the Catskills, in New York. After the honeymoon, they moved to a rooming house in Dayton Ohio, before moving back to Philadelphia, where their first daughter, Shawn was born in 1953. In 1955, they moved to London, where Martin worked as a military contractor and their second daughter, Bryna, was born. After their return to the US, they lived in Philadelphia; in Alexandria, VA; and finally in Potomac, MD, where they remained for a dozen years and enjoyed the company of close friends. 

While living in Potomac, Martin worked for the US Department of the Treasury and decided to study law, encouraged by his employer. He attended evening law school at Catholic University in Washington D.C., graduating after four years. As a lawyer he worked in the counsel’s office for the Comptroller of the Currency, under the US Department of the Treasury. Shirley worked for the legal counsel in the Department of Labor.

Martin and Shirley separated in 1978 (and divorced some years later), after Martin took an appointment as legal counsel for the US Treasury Northwest Regional Comptroller’s office in Portland, Oregon. He appreciated Portland as a good place for hiking and the arts. He ended his legal career at the age of 55, embarking on a long and happy retirement, which he filled with music, chess, reading, and travel. In his spare moments he devoted himself to study of the stock market, a lifelong avocation to which he attributed his longevity. He met his second wife Hilda, a widow seven years his junior, during a trip to Italy. In 1995 they married in Maryland at the home of Hilda’s son Saul and his wife, Kim. Martin and Hilda split their US time between Portland and the D.C. area to have time with their respective children, studied Italian together in Portland, and enjoyed many more trips to Italy, France, Russia, Turkey, and other destinations. Together they took each of their grandchildren in turn on an overseas adventure. Theirs was a lasting and companionable marriage that lasted for 29 years, until Hilda’s death on March 29, 2024, five days before Martin’s own.

He is survived by his former wife, Shirley Goodman, two daughters Shawn (Don Aultman) and Bryna (Peter Edberg), grandchildren William Aultman, Hannah Aultman, and David Goodman-Edberg, and great-granddaughter Fiona.