Wilder, Vt. — Martha Marie Brison (née Peltola), 98, died peacefully and in the company of loved ones in the early morning of Monday, May 21, 2018, at Valley Terrace, a senior-living home in Wilder.

Martha was born on Dec. 23, 1919, in Copper Cliff, Ontario, Canada, of Finnish immigrant parents, Vaino Joel Peltola and Ida Alina (Jarvi Kukkola) Peltola. They named her Martta Maria, but the doctor who delivered her anglicized her name. Nonetheless, Finnish was Martha's first language and she retained her fluency into her final years. She also exhibited, throughout her life, a trait central to the culture of Finland: sisu. There is no precise English translation of "sisu," but close equivalents are "resilience," "tenacity," and "grit."

Martha's early years were marked by scarcity. Vaino worked in the mines and Ida ran a boarding house in order to provide for Martha and her six siblings, Joel, Johannes, Saimi, Helmi, Hilja, and Lillian, rising at 5:00 each morning to milk the cow and bake pies. The family's poverty instilled in Martha an enduring frugality and concern for social justice.

After working as a secretary at Falconbridge Nickel Mines from her mid-teens to her mid-twenties, Martha struck up a relationship with Robert Brison, an aspiring mining engineer. They married in 1946, moved to New York City and then, a year later, to Columbus, Ohio where they had three children: Mary, Don, and Susan. Subsequent moves brought them to Allendale, N.J., Los Angeles, Calif. and Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver, where they lived in a quiet lakeside neighborhood with a view of the Rocky Mountains.

Martha's passions as an adult included spending time with family, painting, camping, music, and forming life-long friendships wherever she lived. She was a devout Lutheran and volunteered with Lutheran World Relief as well as many other organizations. Mary recalls her mom as a prolific planner of birthday and Christmas parties, family trips, scouting excursions, bridge-club meetings, play dates, and talent shows.

To the end, Martha was joyful, generous, and a great conversationalist. She also had tack-sharp recall. Her grandson Gabe, who recorded interviews with her in the last couple of years, observed that chatting with her was like casting a fishing line into a bottomless well of memories: you never knew what you'd catch. Once it was a roster of her elementary-school classmates. Another time it was a description of a toy typewriter her eight-year-old self made out of an egg carton.

She often spun these memories into life lessons. In describing her start in painting, she said, "I wasn't gifted. I wasn't. And I don't think anybody should sit and think they weren't gifted; you don't know till you try. And even if you try and you aren't satisfied with how you did, you can always improve with practice and patience."

Martha was predeceased by her siblings, her husband, and her son. She is survived by her daughters, Susan Brison and Mary Pearson; sons-in-law, Tom Trezise and Larry Pearson; grandchildren, Gabe Brison-Trezise and Shaun and Kimberly Pearson; and many nieces and nephews and their children and grandchildren.

Martha's family is grateful to the staff at Valley Terrace for providing her with loving care for the last three-and-a-half years and to Bayada Hospice for making her final months more comfortable.