January 7, 1950 – June 6, 2025
Martha Margaret (Sky) Dempster passed away at Jefferson Hospital on June 6, 2025. Born in Globe, Arizona, to George and Lola Dempster, Martha was a child of the Southwest who loved to roam the desert at Coolidge Dam where her father was superintendent.
Growing up in Globe, she was an exceptional student, spiritual leader, and musician who played clarinet in a winning marching band, was an outstanding pianist, and played the organ for three churches.
After graduation from Texas Women’s University, she joined with the team of the Ecumenical Institute and Institute of Cultural Affairs to carry out a spiritual program of selfless service in the United States and abroad.
She was an Occupational Therapist for 45 years and a gifted hand therapist who served many patients in Port Townsend and on the Kitsap Peninsula.
As a passionate student of women’s spirituality and a member of Unity Center for Spiritual Growth, she led retreats highlighting the true legacy of Mary Magdalene. She was a member of Ananda Church of Self Realization and a devotee of Paramhansa Yogananda.
Sky was a talented artist who painted inspiring watercolors as a student of John Adams, painter of light.
Martha Sky was preceded in death by her big brothers, George and Tom Dempster. She is adored and missed by her loving family, including her wife, Shakti Dieste, her son Russell Gordon Dempster Cunningham, and her grandsons Grant and John Christian. Also by sons-in-law Daniel and Joseph Christian and daughters-in-law Susan Christian and Rebeka Jayne, and the family of Blanche Dempster, Evelyn, Eric and Emily Dawson, and many loving friends.
Dear Friends and colleagues,
Martha Dempster peacefully passed from this realm of existence following three years of challenging Lewy body dementia. Please direct prayers of condolences and sympathy to her wife, Shakti Dieste and son, Russell Cunningham. A memorial service will follow later in August.
Sharing your memories of Martha on this message thread will be appreciated.
With gratitude for a dear friend,
~~ Sharon Fisher
Martha and I were both in the Houston Religious House in the early 1970s. On one occasion she and I were assigned to do some kind of trek through Central Texas. Along the way we stopped off in the little rural town of Dublin, where my mother was born and raised. We went by the home of my grandmother and grandfather, who still lived there. I introduced Martha to them and they, in true Texas style, insisted that we stay for lunch. Martha was a special colleague and a very gracious young woman. I had not seen her for many years but I am certain she was equally so as an older woman. May she rest in peace.
~~ Randy Williams
Martha was my college roommate. She recruited me to RS1. I mourn her passing I regret we weren’t in touch these last years. I celebrate her completed life. Blessed be.
~~ Mary Kincaid Hampton
Martha Dempster – a Woman Driven by Care and Called to Service
told by Sharon Fisher
I am pleased to be able to share with you the exceptional life of my dear friend, Martha Maragaret Dempster. She was both a skilled healthcare practitioner and an accomplished artist. Her passion included current scientifically based care for her patients, and for herself she was always exploring the sacred in our time.
For Martha that meant she became an occupational therapist and a student of 20th century theologians, female saints in history, including Mary Magdalene, and a rich variety of religious practices. She loved painting, Zen Tangling, drumming, singing, and collage making.
In 1967 one of the smartest things Martha did for herself proved to be making herself globally employable by studying occupational therapy at North Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas. There at Wesley Foundation, she attended a Religious Studies Course taught by the Ecumenical Institute (EI) and later its sister organization, the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA).
Upon graduating from North Texas Women’s University in 1971, she answered a call to service through the work of these organizations and their experimental family service order. Her first assignment sent her to Chicago, IL during the chaotic civil rights times. She provided occupational therapy care at Cook County Hospital.
She next accepted an assignment to Seattle, WA. During the U.S.A’s Bi-Centennial Celebration, Martha facilitated and coordinated community workshops celebrating an effort called Town Meeting ’76, which eventually resulted in 5,000 community gatherings across America.
From her assignment to Billings, MT, Martha answered the call to work on a Sioux Indian reservation in North Dakota engaged in comprehensive community development. When assigned to Glasgow, Scotland, she met David Cunningham, whom she married in Globe, AZ in 1978.
Both working with the ICA, Martha and David, were assigned to assist with the poorest of the poor in an economically depressed former mining village in Wales and then to a struggling fishing village in southeastern Taiwan. The purpose of the projects trained and motivated residents, encouraged leadership development, and demonstrated comprehensive and lasting change.
Martha prepared herself to be an asset no matter where she showed up. This allowed for the Institute’s foundational practice of a self-supporting staff – all donations went to world-wide ICA projects and local programs.
Once back in the United States, Martha and David worked with Seattle ICA, assisting with Town Meeting follow up, facilitation methods courses, and helping plan a Pacific Northwest Regional Consultation – all while Martha was employed as a home health care OT in the Seattle metropolitan area. In May of 1984 Russell Cunningham, Martha’s pride and joy was born. Not long after, Martha and David divorced after six years of marriage.
There are two other adventures that I personally experienced with my friend, Martha.
First, in 1988 as young women both newly divorced and with children, Martha and I decided to join forces to help support one another. We shared a house together in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. Our children, Russell, Miko and Duncan grew close and remain lifelong friends. The sense of family that developed is significant for all of us.
And secondly, Martha and I helped start a women’s circle that continues to this day. The Circle gathers each July with drumming, singing, studying, and sharing the milestones of our lives. Martha played an integral role in these Sacred Sister Circles for 33 years. She loved to share Russell stories at our gatherings, which made our hair stand on end. We agreed that some of Russ’s daring actions in the mountains and on bike trails did give us pause. Her skill at meditation, drumming, and bringing depth to a conversation cared for us all. She was open and curious – very drawn to the religious. She was a seeker of the Mystery, who cared deeply for each of us.
What a life! What a life of service and care!
When Becky Hemsley created this poem, “Woven,” she must have been thinking about our Martha.
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WOVEN
you’re sewn into my habits,
like the way I make my tea,
you’re stitched within my waking hours,
threaded through my dreams
the fibres of you run through
words and phrases that I say
and all my memories of you
embroider every day
the jokes you told embellish days
that otherwise are bare
and all your little quirks make up
my life of patchwork squares
it’s you that knitted colour,
that tied knots and bonds so strong
that your beauty and your essence
still remain now you are gone
see, we are like a tapestry
all stitched and woven tight
and I know you’re always with me
in the fabric of my life
so when I start to feel things
tangled up inside my heart
I stop and realise love
is an enduring work of art
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Thank you. It is an honor to be here. Blessings of all the goddesses of all times to Martha and each of us.