Those fortunate enough to have been Marydean Martin's friend know that March was her month.

It might be best remembered for its infamous Ides and for coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb, but Marydean made March all her own with a monthlong birthday celebration.

So, it's only fitting that her celebration of life would be held in the month she liked best — and during a spring "superbloom" in the desert, no less.

Longtime Las Vegans may recall Marydean as the blithe spirit of Joyce & Martin Advertising. In partnership with iconic Nevada lobbyist Jim Joyce, one of the state's great legislative rainmakers, for more than two decades she handled the business end of the operation. She brought a thoughtful, poetic sensibility to a business in which such qualities are rarer than a Howard Hughes sighting.

Like others who counted her as a friend, we shared an affinity for books. Her love of reading was sparked in early childhood by trips to the library with her mother and kindled by her teachers. "My teachers encouraged me to write stories and poems, probably more to keep me quiet because I learned things quickly," she once told me. "I wasn't a bad child. I was just quick. And I've been writing ever since."

She recalled how future husband Charlie Silvestri discovered her — where else? — amid the stacks of books at the Nevada Southern University (now UNLV) library.

"He pursued me until I married him while we were still in college," she said. "As they say in those good fairy tales, we have lived and prospered ever after."

They were married 66 years.

Silvestri recalls juggling college with work as a swing-shift keno ticket writer at the newly opened Mint on Fremont Street. When his shift ended at 6 a.m., he hustled to his first class at Nevada Southern and rested between courses in the library, and went on to become an educator, school administrator and lobbyist.

"She'd make everyone be quiet while I took a nap," he says. "She'd wake me for my next class and tell me when it was time to go."

Their love for libraries, and each other, was never-ending.

Among their many philanthropic gifts to the community, Marydean and Charlie were generous early donors to Nevada State College in Henderson. They remained loyal supporters as it rose to university status. It's little wonder that Nevada State University's library is named in Marydean's honor. And you needn't look far to find an example of her support for young writers than the more recent creation of the Marydean Martin Writers' Project. (For his part, Silvestri has a junior high school named in his honor.)

Outside the office, Marydean's own writing included the publication of a collection of poetry, Who Will Love the Earth. Conversations with her weren't complete without a discussion of the latest book or article she'd read. She counted the best-selling poet and author James Kavanaugh among her dear friends, but she collected friends like flowers. That is to say, in bunches.

Those friends were eclectic, to say the least. One she greatly admired was Las Vegas casino man and developer Moe Dalitz, the transformed mob racketeer. Dogged by law enforcement, the press and the wolves of La Cosa Nostra for much of his life, Dalitz personified the lights and shadows of the city that he played such an integral role in creating.

"Moe Dalitz through his generosity, marvelous sense of humor and gentle ways taught me not to believe everything I read in the press or depend upon other opinions as to what makes up a fine human being," she told me in an interview for my 2014 book, Vegas Voices: Conversations with Great Las Vegas Characters. "He was a kind, somewhat tormented man who lived, like most of us, as best he could under the circumstances that were dealt him. He was a good example for me to follow. His quietly telling me that I was a 'good girl' was something that I will always treasure.

"One time we were talking about his past as a bootlegger in Cleveland, and he asked me if my grandfather drank liquor. I said of course. He said he was sure everybody had a grandfather who did something, but eventually they were forgiven. When was he going to be forgiven? Like all of us, Moe lived a life that was dealt him the best that he could."

Dalitz had many attorneys in his long life, but had no greater defender than Marydean Martin.

Another friend who influenced her greatly was the woman who called herself Dana McKay. Some might remember McKay's bookstore and secretarial college in Las Vegas. Educated at the University of Chicago, she was the daughter of an opera singer. Like many Las Vegans of her generation, McKay reinvented herself in Las Vegas after a divorce. She lived as a freethinker and spirit the rest of her life. Like her friend, Marydean was comfortable in her own skin.

She made many new friends at Nevada State, including its community relations director Diana Morgan and executive director for the arts and former Clark County Poet Laureate Angela Brommel.

"Writing was essential to her joy, and she wanted to create opportunities for our students and the community to be shaped by words and beauty as she had," Brommel says.

"She worked hard and lifted those around her as she rose," Morgan adds. "I feel like the luckiest kid in class to have spent time in her orbit."

For many years, Marydean's work made her a boldface name in Nevada politics and business, but it didn't define her. She understood the real Las Vegas that few experience, but it didn't make her cynical.

"My real life has been the people I have met, the books I've read and the places throughout the world where I have traveled," she told me.

After her death in late February, I was surprised to learn that she was born in 1929. My ebullient friend Marydean always seemed ageless to me.

March won't be the same without her.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.