05/28/2026
Amazing woman doing amazing things
In 1892, on Willapa Bay, Washington, after the sawmill burned and left the town jobless, schoolteacher Martha Jensen took her 8 students digging clams to buy books. The district stopped paying her. The kids stopped coming because they were hungry. So Martha canceled class on Fridays and led them to the tideflats with shovels and coffee cans. They dug horse clams, steamed them over driftwood fires, and sold them to the oyster boats for 2 cents a pound. In 3 months they earned $18.70. She bought 12 McGuffey Readers and a sack of flour. The boys called her “Captain.” She posted on the chalkboard: “We read in the morning. We feed ourselves at noon.” All 8 of those kids graduated. One became a state senator. He said: “She taught us the tide was a library too.”
