"A woman who loved life, and life loved her in re­turn. A woman of grace, style, beau­ty, and class."A woman of prin­ci­ple who was fear­less and par­tial to none.

"A woman who was gen­er­ous, will­ing, com­pas­sion­ate, and loy­al. She al­ways was there to keep in con­tact, in qui­et progress, and main­tain friend­ships.

"A woman who loved the cul­ture and was a fierce ad­vo­cate for her is­land and coun­try.

"A woman com­mit­ted to sport and youth de­vel­op­ment."

The above is just a snip­pet of a record­ing of Martha Archer's eu­lo­gy read by her daugh­ter Ko­rice Archer-Nan­cis at the fu­ner­al ser­vice of the for­mer T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) pres­i­dent on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon at the St Patrick’s An­gli­can Church in Mt Pleas­ant, To­ba­go.

Archer-Nan­cis spoke of her moth­er's life and the sig­nif­i­cant im­pact she had on oth­ers and her life­time de­vo­tion to the sport of net­ball which was bol­stered by those who spoke at the ser­vice, de­scrib­ing the longest-serv­ing net­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor in glow­ing terms in­clud­ing Sher­ry-Ann Black­burn, the cur­rent TTNA head.  

Black­burn read sev­er­al let­ters writ­ten by friends and sig­nif­i­cant per­sons in net­ball through­out the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in mem­o­ry of Archer who passed away on No­vem­ber 15 at age 68.

She con­veyed the love­ly mes­sage from world Net­ball pres­i­dent Liz Nicholls, who said: "We were shocked and sad­dened to hear of the death of Martha Archer, Hum­ming­bird medal­list. Martha's pass­ing is a great loss to the whole net­ball fam­i­ly. Martha made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to net­ball as a play­er, coach, um­pire and ad­min­is­tra­tor of the sport. We recog­nise Martha's very suc­cess­ful tenure as pres­i­dent of T&T net­ball and that she was the TTNA's re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al del­e­gate for many years."

From pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­c­as Net­ball, Mar­va Bernard: "She was our life­time award ho­n­ouree serv­ing all pres­i­dents with dis­tinc­tion. We have many favourite mem­o­ries of Martha but we ac­knowl­edge her knowl­edge of the his­to­ry of our sport, es­pe­cial­ly in this re­gion and how we all re­ferred to her when we want­ed con­fir­ma­tion on some­thing that hap­pened in the past. We know how much she will be missed."

And from Mol­ly Rhone, im­me­di­ate past-pres­i­dent Amer­i­c­as Net­ball: "I'm sure that when­ev­er the his­to­ry of net­ball in the re­gion is writ­ten, Martha's name will be there."

Ahead of the ser­vice, video trib­utes were pre­sent­ed with each shar­ing their fond mem­o­ries with Archer in­clud­ing Dr Pa­tri­cia Butch­er, im­me­di­ate past-pres­i­dent of  TTNA, George Lea­cock, An­nette Al­fred, Shirley Cooke (Crown Point Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee), Ray­mond Pig­gott (WASA re­tiree) and Kar­lene Bap­tiste (WASA Sports and Cul­tur­al Club), to name a few.

Sev­er­al of the na­tion­al play­ers and staff at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al, with had some 100 per­sons in­side and out­side of the church and on­line, over 500 per­sons. They were se­nior play­ers Aniecia Bap­tiste and Oprah Dou­glas, Keleli­cia George (ju­nior), na­tion­al as­sis­tant coach Kem­ba Dun­can, man­ag­er Ashelle Legall and TTNA pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Abeni Tay­lor, who shared on Archer's con­tri­bu­tions to the coun­try and net­ball.

Archer, who was lat­er laid to rest at the church­yard ceme­tery had been in­volved in the sport for some 50 years, was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice to T&T. She was the first To­bag­on­ian to be elect­ed pres­i­dent of a Na­tion­al Sport­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, serv­ing as head of the TTNA for 14 years (1991–2003, 2005–2007) and in sev­er­al po­si­tions,  on both is­lands and in the re­gion.

Archer was the sec­re­tary/trea­sur­er of To­ba­go Net­ball League (TNL) for 20 years (1978-1998), hold­ing the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent for ten years (1999–2003, 2007–2013) and was the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) vice-pres­i­dent from 1994-2018. In her fi­nal year of ser­vice to the Amer­i­c­as’ body, life mem­ber­ship in AF­NA was con­ferred on her in Bar­ba­dos at a World Cup qual­i­fi­er.

Ac­cord­ing to Black­burn: "Martha's life rep­re­sents courage, per­se­ver­ance, hon­esty, and good­will. She has left be­hind a lega­cy of strength in­for­ma­tion and wis­dom that will be cher­ished for many years."

She closed off by say­ing: "Martha was one of the strongest, a stal­wart in the sport of net­ball 45 un­bro­ken years of ser­vice. We can't go with­out say­ing - Thank you, Martha."