There is a new star in the skies above Ninigret Pond. Marti Giovan ascended to the heavens on March 3, 2020. Poet, expressive therapist, rebel, believer of magic, séance holder, tarot card reader, champion of stray animals and lost souls, weaver of tall tales, and mother to many, her bright and beautiful spirit has joined her family, friends and menagerie on the other side. Inclusive, generous and flamboyant, she touched many over the course of an eccentric, creative and adventure-filled life, and lives on as a legendary figure in both the Virgin Islands and Rhode Island.

Born Mary Niles Arnold August 6, 1927 to Genevieve Buckingham Arnold and Frank Wallace Arnold in Bronxville, NY where she was raised, the family spent summers in Arnolda - the summer colony founded by her grandfather Thomas Lyman Arnold in Charlestown, RI. She attended Rye Country Day School and Finch College.

On assignment in the Virgin Islands - she worked for a photographer post college - she met Anthony Constantine Giovan, a vacationing Greek from Chicago. They were married at The Dunes Club in Narragansett, RI in 1954.

After several frigid years in Chicago, they moved the family to St. Thomas VI in 1964. “Tony” opened Calypso, an ice cream manufacturing business. They purchased Blackbeard’s Castle for their home, and renovated the ramshackle property Villa Olga, turning it into a thriving restaurant and inn-now currently being run by Alkione aka Candy Giovan as Olga’s Fancy. The family grew to five children and a small zoo of numerous dogs, cats, parrots and monkeys, all of which would be transported in the summers to their home, The Blue House, in Arnolda.

In 1981 Marti returned to New England, getting her master’s degree in expressive therapy at Beacon College in Boston. She had private therapy clients, conducted poetry and writing workshops throughout New England, and designed and facilitated poetry therapy classes for the criminally insane at the Institute for Mental Health. She was known for her theatrical and provocative presentations. She was an active participant for many years in Grace: A Spiritual Growth Training Program that integrates spiritual development with social and ecological responsibility. A book of her poetry, Sliding Between the Waves…A Crone’s Journey, was published in 2006.

Her lifelong partner Tony Giovan left the world in April 2012. Marti continued her journey from The Blue House with its view of Ninigret Pond, where she remained - cared for by daughter Suzanne - until she left this physical plane. Marti leaves behind many memories, stories and poems along with her children Tom, Geoff, Tria, Suzanne, and Candy, their spouses Jill Giovan, Eddie Moy, Jaime Escalante and grandchildren James and Parker, her sister Sarah Whittemore and nieces -Arianna, Gioia, Lia and Nike, and surrogate children Banks Yatsula, Fraser Benzel, Carolyn Pomeranz, and Derya Samadi.

Donations can be made in her name to the animal shelter of your choice.

An excerpt from "In My Last Hour" by Marti Giovan:

In my last hour I wish to be like the swans

That float on my pond.

Dusk descends

Regal fullness reflects

In the stilling of the wind

Until their emergence into the space

Between the light and the darkening water.