Martha Gertrude was the daughter of Mary Hills Smith and Dr. William Henry Farner, the eldest of their eight children. She married Charles Cork, originally of Headcorn, county Kent, England, in Merton, Wisconsin on 1 May 1864. The Corks had two children--Gertrude Perle, born 7 January 1870 and Charles Farner, born 9 September 1875. The great-granddaughter of Samuel Green and Martha ("Patty") Hills Sargent, Martha inherited a portrait of the Sargents' family, painted in the year 1800 by an unknown American artist. One of the four children in the portrait, Martha [Patty] Hills Sargent (later Mrs. Jehiel Smith), was Martha Cork's grandmother. Mrs. Cork in turn gave the picture (now in the NGA) to her granddaughter, Gertrude Louise Cork Swezey of Coxsackie, New York, by 17 June 1941.