Supercentenarian Profile

Martha Bachmann

Born:

1916-02-27

Nuernberg, Bavaria

Germany

Current Residence:

Sunnyvale, California

United States

Martha Bachmann is a German-born American supercentenarian.

BIOGRAPHY

Martha Bachmann was born in Nuernberg, Bavaria, Germany, on 27 February 1916. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 10, settling with her family on the Lower East Side of New York. After graduating from high school, she moved to California.

In 1941, she traveled to Palo Alto to attend a wedding, where she reconnected with Louis, a young man she had known from her church choir. Their friendship quickly blossomed into love, and they married, eventually raising two daughters. In the early 1960s, after her children were grown, Bachmann sought meaningful ways to devote her time to charitable work. Friends from church invited her to join the Stanford Auxiliary, where she volunteered at the hospital. She began volunteering as a Stanford Auxiliary “Pink Lady” in 1962, when Stanford Hospital was then known as the Palo Alto–Stanford Hospital Center.

She has been a devoted member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church for nearly 70 years and chaired the Church Periodical Club for more than three decades, from the 1950s through the late 1980s.