Martha Anderson Roy – teacher, missionary, musician and musicologist- was born in Tanta, Egypt on March 27, 1913, the eldest child of Reverend Mark and Ida (McElroy) Roy. Her parents were missionaries with the Presbyterian American Mission in Egypt.
Martha was born in the American Mission Hospital in Tanta, just north of Cairo, as there was no American hospital in Alexandria, where her parents were working at the time. As a young girl, she was educated at the Lycée Français in Al-Attarin, and finished her high school studies at the Schutz American School of Alexandria, where her father held a teaching post. There, she also began to study piano and later traveled to the U.S. to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Music and French at Muskingum College in Ohio. Upon returning from her studies abroad in 1935, she became a music teacher at the Girls School in Luxor, teaching young Egyptians about Western classical music and about the music of their own folk heritage. In 1955, Martha relocated to Cairo, where she taught and served as vice principal at the American College for Girls (subsequently renamed Ramses College for Girls) until 1967. Read more at “Find a Grave”
