Martha Demerritt Parker

Martha graduated from Kansas State University. She worked as an elementary school

teacher for 5 years.

She is the Co-owner of Parker-Laird Enterprises and owner of Freedom Publishing Co. She was a founding member of the Douglas County Amateur Baseball Association.

Martha has worked for almost 40 years to preserve the history of the Clinton Lake area. She was a Founding member and first Chairman of the Bloomington-Clinton Historical Committee (now the Clinton Lake Historical Society). She is Co-Founder and Director of the Wakarusa River Valley Museum.

She Co-Authored the book Soil of Souls which tells the history of the communities affected by the creation of Clinton Lake. She authored the Historic Map of Clinton Lake in 1976 as well as a Contour Fishing Map of Clinton Lake.

She was given a grant from the Kansas Committee for Humanities for the project "Plowshares to Waterskis" Clinton: Uprooted Kansas Community.

She is Author of the book Angles of Freedom which tells of the Underground Railroad activity in the Clinton-Bloomington area.

Martha has created or helped cr ate nearly twenty permanent traveling exhibits relating to the history of the Clinton Lake area. She has also collected historical artifacts, documents and photographs along with verbal and written histories of families in the Wakarusa Valley.

In 2008 Martha and the Historical Society commissioned a sculpture representing the Clinton-Bloomington communities and the next year she arranged a ballet to perform in the setting depicting the escaping slaves and their benefactors. She continues to promote the Museum with performances, concerts, barbecues, talks, slideshows, historical presentation and media interviews.