Beloved mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.

Martha Elisabeth Branch was born June 13, 1951 in Amsterdam.She grew up with her mother and sisters Ria and Gerrie and brother Jan in Amsterdam, her father died when she was very young.She was also close to her late half-sister Corry and her cousin Albert.She was especially close to her older sister Gerrie who sadly passed away 2 years ago, and her brother Jan passed away three weeks after Martha.

She married an American, Joe Branch who was in the US Air Force, in 1969 and they had 1 child, their daughter Pamela, age 50.As a military family they lived in the Netherlands, North Dakota, Arizona, Spain (where she was able to spend a lot of summer breaks visiting her mother and family in Amsterdam) and in 1977 settled in California in the Inland Empire.Martha and Joe divorced in 1987 and then she moved to Orange County, California.She loved the Orange County beach lifestyle and bought a condo first in Huntington Beach, then soon after a townhouse in Garden Grove.She was bereaved by the loss of her mother to whom she was very close, who passed away in 1988.While living in Orange County she discovered the Avio and the Holland Soccer Club, Dutch social clubs where she met many close friends that she could speak to in Dutch or English and they became a very tight knit circle of friends.They made many wonderful memories at each other's homes, and vacations and weekends away in places like Catalina Island, the mountains, and the Caribbean.

Martha worked in the bar and restaurant insurance industry for decades as a manager, then as an executive, including for AIM Insurance and RCA Insurance.She travelled often to meet agents that she worked with in the bar and restaurant industry and was well loved and respected in the insurance industry.Martha loved to travel, especially to Holland to visit family there, and loved to go on time share vacations with her family.She was proud to attend her daughter Pamela's wedding to her son in law Kyle Powell in 2005 in Lake Tahoe, after which they lived in the Oakland area, and loved to get together with them and Kyle's family.She was very excited to be the "Oma" (Dutch for grandmother) to their twins Evan and Zoe who were born in 2010.She was happiest when spending time with her grandkids, now 9 years old, and really enjoyed their almost yearly vacations together to Kauai.

She loved beautiful things and always took pains to look nice (makeup a must!), dress to impress, and always had elegant furnishings.She loved to surround herself with beautiful things and was great at decorating and had a green thumb and always LOTS of plants!She enjoyed "La Bella Vita", the beautiful/good life.Martha loved to organize get-togethers with her close friends and host breakfast and dinner parties, and was an excellent cook.She teamed up with Pamela to make many holiday meals.She also loved to read books and cooking magazines.She enjoyed quiet time and soft jazz music, especially once she retired to her beautiful apartment with a view overlooking Dana Point harbor in 2016 where she was very happy to meet her dear friend and next door neighbor Marjan when she discovered she is a fellow Dutch woman!She continued to go to Dutch themed gatherings and social events with her friends when she could.She loved to go out to eat with Marjan and would call happily saying she had her favorite onion soup, or seafood.She was an amazingly devoted grandmother and usually would fly to the Bay area to visit her grandkids every month, and provided so much help, especially when they were younger, and their parents were overwhelmed! She always had a kind word, loved to joke and laugh, never failed to cheer people up, and was very generous, never saying no to friends or family in need. She stayed close to her family in Holland and loved to call her niece Michelle to talk about their favorite soap opera and keep up with the artist career of her nephew Pascal.She had an unfortunate decline in health in the last year of her life, but those of us who were close to her feel she was taken too soon and will miss her so much.But now she is free.