Martha Rasche
Martha Rasche got her start with paper crafts when, as a preschooler growing up on a farm in southern Indiana, she cut paper dolls from the Sears catalog.
Her writing endeavors started in high school, and she majored in journalism in college.
Early in her newspaper career, while working at The South Bend Tribune, she felt she needed a hobby to fill idle hours. She landed on rubber stamping, which provided a pastime for her and cute cards to send to family and friends back home. Pretty papers continue to inspire her.
In January of 1996 she took three vacation days from the Tribune and returned to the family farm to interview her ailing father about his life. Four months later, he died. His life stories were referenced in his eulogy years before they ever were combined with the stories of Martha’s mother into a simple spiral-bound book for the family.
Realizing how close her family came to losing her father’s stories forever continues to motivate Martha’s life stories work. In 2014 she left her newspaper career to help seniors write their stories, one-on-one and in group classes. The following year, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She recently added Journaling Through Cancer workshops to her writing repertoire.
Martha invites you to visit her website at www.TheseAreOurStories.com.