Editorial
Tom and Marta Kastner were a remarkable couple who led fascinating lives. They spent their retirement years here, having moved into their beloved, historic Cedar Hill home in Rockbridge County in 1988. Each was extremely active in our community, leaving an indelible mark on those fortunate enough to have crossed paths with them. Tom died May 1 at age 98, about 20 months after Marta’s death at age 91 in September of 2023.
Following a 20-year career as a U.S. Navy pilot, Tom led the Flight Test Auto Telemetry Systems at Grunman Aerospace in Long Island, N.Y. He served as a consultant for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Institute for Defense Analysis, Alexandria. On the 60th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight, Tom assisted in building a museum-quality reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer that was exhibited at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. He was an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Fellow (chairman of commission on flight tests 1972-1975, technical act committee 1975-1978) and a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.
After moving to Rockbridge County, Tom lectured in aeroscience at Virginia Military Institute, served as director of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Rockbridge County Chapter, was president of the Virginia Canals and Navigation Society and an active participant in the James River Bateaux Festival. He led efforts to restore a monument to Frank Padget, a skilled boatman and slave who in 1854 lost his life helping rescue 49 passengers and crew of the Clinton canal boat after it got caught in raging waters at Balcony Falls.
In the early 2000s, Tom undertook a massive research project to document the graves at Lexington Oak Grove Cemetery (then Stonewall Jackson Cemetery) so that the stories of lesser-known citizens would be known to present and future generations. He visited each grave, compared it to past records, took photographs of inscriptions and noted pertinent information. He then shared the information with the Rockbridge Area Genealogical Association, which checked its records and provided any additional information. This initiative led to the creation of a digital database of the graves at Washington and Lee University.
Marta Prochazka Herben was a political refugee from Czechoslovakia who met Tom in Monterey, Calif., in the 1950s, when he was studying at the Naval Postgraduate School. Marta was part of a prominent Czech family who had to flee their native country twice – from the Nazis prior to World War II and from the Communists during the postwar years. Her father was a cabinet member of the Czech government in exile during the war and her mother a renowned political journalist who wrote acclaimed articles about democracy in the years immediately after the war, before the Communist coup.
Marta wrote several books about her family’s experiences before, during and after World War II. Her last book, “Enjoy It While You Can, Before …,” focuses on her mother, Helena Kozeluhova, who found fame and danger with the notoriety that followed the publication of her acclaimed articles. Kit Huffman, a former reporter for The News-Gazette, interviewed Marta following the 2018 publication of this book. Marta told Huffman about her mother being imprisoned multiple times by the Nazis and the Communists, and how her mother and younger sister made a final harrowing escape in 1949.
A voracious reader and prolific author, Marta shared her writing talent with Rockbridge area readers over the last decades of her life – first as a columnist for The Weekender, a sister publication of The News-Gazette, from 1999 until The Weekender ceased publication in 2016, and then as a columnist for The Rockbridge Advocate, from 2016 to 2022. She wrote a total of 734 “Garden Thoughts” columns for The Weekender. Those weekly columns began with her dispensing advice about gardening and ruminating on nature but evolved, over the years, into something more, in which she shared her vast knowledge about a variety of topics. She continued in this vein, delving quite deeply at times into her personal history in Czechoslovakia, when she wrote her monthly “The View From Cedar Hill” columns in The Rockbridge Advocate.
Marta and Tom were and remain an inspiration to many. They were generous with their gifts, to the benefit of our community and beyond. They will be missed but their legacy, individually and as a couple, will endure.
