Martha Olson Dies At 90

Martha Olson

Martha Annette Olson of Manhattan and Southampton died at her New York home, surrounded by friends, on July 30 after a long illness. She was 90.

Ms. Olson was a known as an achiever and built a distinguished career in public relations. She, along with two partners, started a public relations firm in St. Louis, and it was so successful that it was acquired by Farley Manning in New York, where she became a senior vice president. She later joined Hill & Knowlton, rising to senior vice president before her retirement. During the course of her career, Ms. Olson advised such powerful clients as the Principality of Monaco, Mexico’s Department of Tourism (supervising the launch of Cancun), the Virgin Islands, Anheuser-Busch, E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Pet Milk and Chevron Chemical. Her hands-on style and creative ideas earned her major industry awards, including the Prisms Award presented by the Los Angeles chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in 1980, and two years later, she was one of the first women in the country to win the Silver Anvil Award, the highest honor given by the PRSA.

Ms. Olson was born in Ft. Stockton, Texas, on Christmas Day, 1920, the daughter of Auburn Elizabeth Bransford, a fiercely proud Southerner, and John Nels Olson, a Swedish immigrant in the railroad business. She spent her formative years in Parsons, Kansas, before moving to St. Louis and finally to New York. After she graduated from Parsons Junior College a summer job at a Parsons newspaper eventually led to a full-time position. Her duties included reporting, feature writing and drawing; her talent for fine oil painting eventually blossomed.

In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in January 1958 regarding her public relations success, Ms. Olson said, “Speed somehow always seems to have been part of my life.” Indeed she loved life in the fast lane, whether driving one of her low-slung sports convertibles, flying a single-engine plane as a 19-year-old student pilot and later becoming an air traffic controller, or much later riding her horse, Dusty, in the Hamptons. She was also involved with civic activities in Southampton, serving as a director of the Southampton Association, and at the Parrish Art Museum she founded and chaired the Public Relations Committee, which included public relations, television and advertising executives.

Ms. Olson is survived by her siblings, Jean and her husband Joseph Stevens of California, and Jack and his wife Alice Olson of Arizona; her close friends and real estate partners, Jody Donohue and Etta Froio both of Manhattan and Southampton. She also leaves her beloved wirehaired fox terrier Bentley, named for one of the fast cars she loved to drive.