Christena Martin Obituary (1927 - 2012)

Christena May Martin, age 84, of Sand Springs, passed over to Heaven on Sunday, January 22, 2012 from Clare House in Tulsa. Christena was born on February 18, 1927 in Cassville, Missouri to Merle and Glea (Thomas) Hockman. She graduated from Sand Springs High School and attended Oklahoma A & M College (now OSU) in Stillwater, playing the flute in band and orchestra. Christena married Leo Ben (Benny) Martin on September 5, 1947 at the Fourth & Grant Church of God. Together they owned and operated Martin Jewelry in Sand Springs where she was the bookkeeper. She was later employed for nineteen years as a secretary for the Sand Springs Public Schools. Christena was well known for her music at the local, state and national level. Beginning as a teenager, she was the pianist and organist for the Fourth & Grant Church of God and Springs Church (formally South Sand Springs Church of God) for 70 years, retiring last March. Through the years, she also accompanied youth camps in Tahlequah, State Camp Meetings in Bristow, and the International Convention of the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana, at Anderson University, in addition to playing for over six hundred weddings and funerals. Christena had a great love of music, playing classical, jazz and gospel. Her hobbies were reading and sewing but she also enjoyed playing for her daughter and local school children on their instruments at band contests and accompanying vocal soloists, ensembles and choirs at the churches. She was also the pianist for the Sand Springs Community Choir and the treasurer for the women of the Church of God. She is survived by her daughter, Sally Knight and husband Steve of Sand Springs, a brother, Merle Eugene Hockman and wife Donna of Eufaula, a sister, Shirley Hoss Palmer of Sand Springs, two grandchildren, Benjamin and Mariah Knight and two great-grandchildren, Natalie and Anthony Knight. Christena was preceded in death by her parents, Merle and Glea Hockman, husband, Ben Martin, son, Monte Martin, granddaughter Summer Christena Knight and sisters Virginia Sands, Cora Martin and Helen Horn.