Martha Marie Rohde

December 27, 1937 – September 13, 2026

Obituary

Martha Rohde (née Haluska), aged 88, passed away peacefully on September 13, 2026, at Jupiter Medical Center Hospice in Jupiter, Florida, after a long and happy life. Born on December 27, 1937, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Martha was the daughter of Michael and Anna Haluska (née Andrash). Martha grew up in Perth Amboy, attended Perth Amboy High School, and was the first female president of her high school class. She was voted as “having done most for her class,” organizing many events and fundraisers. She attended Montclair State College for two years before marrying her first husband, Bruce Joseph. She and Bruce lived at the U.S. Army base in Landshut, Germany, where he was deployed. After their return, they lived in Kimberton, Pennsylvania, where she raised her two children and worked to help Bruce get his nascent business started and running successfully.

After their divorce in 1978, she remarried the love of her life, Wilson Rohde. She and Wilson shared 17 happy and love-filled years together in Baltimore, Ocean City, Maryland, and Tucson, Arizona. They traveled the world, played golf and bridge, and enjoyed good food and each other’s company. After Wilson’s passing in 1995, Martha worked for SCI funeral homes both in Tucson and Virginia Beach, where she moved in 2000. In 2016, she moved to Little Club in Tequesta, Florida, to be near her devoted son, Scott Joseph.

Martha will be remembered for her compassion, kindness, and truly open mind. She had a lifelong love of travel and felt extraordinarily fortunate to see so much of the world. She believed travel was the ultimate education, and whether she was visiting Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Argentina, or the Serengeti, she traveled with the purpose of learning, understanding humanity, and becoming a more empathetic person. This deep empathy also shone through in her work at the funeral homes, where she found real purpose in comforting grieving families. Always eager to learn new things, Martha was a voracious reader who belonged to book clubs for over 30 years, served as a docent at the Tucson Art Museum, and later in life took up the piano later and got certified to teach tai chi. An avid and highly skilled bridge player, and an excellent golfer in her day, she made close friends wherever she lived. She was a positive, optimistic person, always thankful for her blessings and resilient through hardship. She will be missed dearly by her friends and family.

Martha is survived by her son, Scott Joseph; her daughter, Lizabeth Joseph, and husband, Michael Westfall; her sister, Gloria Setnik; her brother, Michael Haluska; and her stepdaughter, Joanne Frankenfeld. She was preceded in death by her husband, Wilson Rohde.

A celebration of life will be held at the Little Club club house at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Martha requested that a tree be planted in her name.