Born of Swedish immigrant parents in 1905, in Rosindale, Massachusetts, Martha Farham Cahoon had a highly successful business partnership with her husband Ralph Cahoon on Cape Cod, selling furniture decorated with folk design motifs.

She came from a family that had moved to Harwich on Cape Code when she was ten years old. She excelled in school, but chose an apprenticeship with her father, Axel Farham, who was a talented furniture decorator working for some of the best-known decorating firms in Boston. Under his guidance, she mastered a freehand method of decorative painting called rosemaling, and later became proficient in stenciling and varnishing.

In 1932, she married Ralph Cahoon, a trained commercial artist from Chatham,...