Martha Willis in Unit 1792 has been our neighbor since 1997. As an active member of the community, she served several terms as HOA secretary.
Georgia is her home state, where she grew up and where she received her Bachelor of Science Degree as a health information manager from the Allied Health School at the Medical College of Georgia. The training she received was focused on health information for hospitals, a satisfying career that she loved and enjoyed until her retirement in 2012.
Martha’s career choice isn’t surprising as her father was a doctor and her mother was a nurse. Following her graduation, she was a Navy wife of a medical doctor for two years. During that time, they lived and worked in Kodiak, Alaska. Martha worked in a civilian hospital, The Catholic Hospital, a twenty-bed hospital on Kodiak Island, which she found to be a very unique experience.
They also spent some time in Rochester, Minnesota before moving to Morganton, North Carolina where her husband began his medical practice, and they raised their
son and daughter. She worked in the Grace Hospital, which has since become UNC Health Blue Ridge Hospital.
Looking for something new, Martha sold her home in Morganton, quit her job there, and moved to Hickory in 1997. She found it as an instructor in her field of health
information at Catawba Valley Community College, where she taught for fifteen years. One of her students was our fellow resident, Ian Meadow.
Throughout her life she has loved horses. From her her childhood until recent years, she was an avid rider. Her other interests include reading, visiting friends and
traveling. She and four close friends from Morganton have all left that community, but they make a point of keeping in touch and traveling to visit with each other
Her other traveling has included cruises, Bermuda, Canada and Mexico. Bermuda is a favorite place and she hopes to make a return trip there.
Martha’s daughter has followed her father and grandfather into the medical field as a doctor. She is a urologist here in Hickory and lives with her husband and her own son
and daughter in Lenoir. Martha’s son lives in the country of Chile, working as an independent contractor online. We had a great visit getting better acquainted and discussing the coincidences of meeting people who had connections to other people in other parts of our lives…the six degrees of separation theory.
Martha happily emphasized how much she loves living in Huntington Woods and enjoys people here. We are glad you are our neighbor!
