Maria Eva Martinez

Eva, as she was known to everyone, is survived by her three children, José Alfredo Encinas, Alberto Encinas, and Laura Carolina Flores; four grandsons and two granddaughters; three brothers and three sisters; and many nephews and nieces.

Eva was from Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, where she was raised and spent most of her early life. Later, as a young woman, she came to the United States and lived in Douglas the rest of her life. One of her favorite sayings was “Como mi Douglas, no hay otro.” (Like my Douglas, there is no other.) Even so, she did manage to get some traveling done. She traveled in Mexico, as far down as Guadalajara, around several places in Arizona, California, across the US by train all the way to Niagara Falls, twice to South Korea, and once to the Philippines.

Eva was very devoted to her three children. As a single mother, she worked hard, sometimes from before the crack of dawn, to provide for her and her children. She was self-sacrificing and giving; never wanting something for herself but for her children instead. She may not have always been able to express it in words, but her actions clearly said that for her, family, especially her children, were first. All you had to do was look at her home and see the enormous number of photos on the walls, doors, refrigerator, tables, and any place that could possibly hold a photo. She had her own personal gallery.

Eva was a devout Christian, having fallen in love with the Lord back in the early 1980s. For her, being a Christian was not just a part of her life; it was her life. She would spend hours a day praying and studying Scripture. She would read through the entirety of the Bible several times a year and could recite chapter after chapter from memory. If you were ever in a Bible competition, she would be your golden ticket to victory.

Though she didn’t have very much of a formal education, she was an avid learner. She had taught herself quite a bit of Hebrew and Greek, since these are languages closely connected to the Bible. In her younger adult years, she purchased 3 thick volumes of a medical encyclopedia which she studied in order to maintain the health of her family when medical care was not always affordable. You could often find her on YouTube searching for new things to learn, from cooking to languages to fixing things to sermons to basically anything that would satisfy her curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Eva was not a woman of great accomplishments as seen or recognized by the world. She didn’t own her own home. She didn’t have a fancy car. She didn’t own expensive clothing. She didn’t even have a high school diploma. She didn’t have lots of money in the bank. She had nothing of what the world would consider success. But what she had was far more valuable. She had kindness, generosity, compassion, empathy, sincerity, genuineness, joy, and above all love. She will be remembered as the one who always had goodies all around her house for anyone to help themselves to. She will be remembered as the one who believed animals deserved kindness too that she would even feed all the neighborhood cats. She will be remembered as the one who took candy, notebooks, crayons, and toys to the church children. She will be remembered as the one who could sit and listen to your troubles and pray with you. She will be remembered as the one who would cry when she saw news of tragedy online because that’s how deeply she felt for even complete strangers. She will be remembered as the one who could never walk past a beggar or someone in need and not give them at least a dollar or some other form of help. She will be remembered as the one who worked long and tiring days to get her family through everything life threw at them. And we, her children, will remember that we had the privilege and honor of calling her MOTHER.

Celebration of Life

October 10, 2022 - 11:00 am

Brown Page Mortuary

910 F. Ave

Douglas, AZ 85607

Burial to follow at 1:00 pm

Calvary Cemetery

1413 5th Street

Douglas, AZ 85607

Douglas Florist: https://www.romanticrealities.net/

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.ShadowMountainMortuary.com for the Martinez family.