Tracy Hurley Martin dead and obituary: Vince Clarke’s wife passed away

My heart hurts. Vince Clarke’s wife Tracy Hurley Martin passed away. I am sending him, Oscar and their family all the best as they try to get through this devastating time. Incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of Tracy Hurley Martin. She was the reason I got to meet my musical heroes during the Violet Flame Tour, and she made it happen purely out of kindness. My sincerest condolences to Vince, Oscar, and Tonya.

Growing up in Uniontown, Pa., Tracy and Tonya Hurley, known as the Hurley twins, often spent weekends accompanying their grandmother to funerals. Tracy, now Tracy Martin, fondly recalls, “In our hometown, Sundays were either for funerals or a Steelers game, and our grandmother was a funeral fly.”

Incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of Tracy Hurley Martin. She was the reason I got to meet my musical heroes during the Violet Flame Tour, and she made it happen purely out of kindness. My sincerest condolences to Vince, Oscar, and Tonya.

Funerals weren’t just a frequent occurrence in their lives; they were also part of the family business. Their great-uncle Vito operated a funeral parlor where he, his wife, and five daughters lived upstairs. “It was just like working in a deli,” Ms. Martin quipped. The family involvement extended to “Gorgeous cousin Denise,” who served as the mortician. When their father, a boxer who played an irregular role in their lives, passed away from a heart attack at 42, Denise, a mortician, undertook the task of preparing him. “He looks like hell,” Ms. Martin recalled her saying. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Fast forward to a recent April afternoon, Tracy Martin, now the chief executive of the Morbid Anatomy Museum set to open in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and Tonya Hurley, a best-selling young-adult novelist specializing in stories featuring deceased heroines, sat together at Ms. Martin’s Brooklyn brownstone to discuss their lifelong fascination with death and how Tracy came to oversee a cultural institution dedicated to the macabre.

The ambiance was fitting—an elaborately Morbid Anatomy-themed late-19th-century Brooklyn brownstone designed by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, renowned for their highbrow, Steampunk-esque interiors. The room featured black-and-yellow poppies, a stunning Victorian mourning wreath on the wall, and a black leather Dunbar sofa adorned with a hulking buffalo skin.

Both Ms. Martin and Ms. Hurley, at the age of 43, sported similar black tunics, black tights, and boots, adhering to a fashion mantra expressed by Ms. Hurley: “We will wear black until they invent a darker color.”

Adding to the eclectic mix, electronic music echoed from the basement, as Ms. Martin is married to Vince Clarke, the English synth-pop star and founding member of Depeche Mode. The family business expanded beyond funerals to music, films, books, and now a museum (with Ms. Hurley serving on the board), much of it embracing the darker side of culture. Ms. Hurley’s husband, Michael Pagnotta, a music and brand manager, has been associated with iconic names like Erasure, Depeche Mode, Morrissey, George Michael, Prince, and the Cure, along with the Olsen twins. Reflecting on their roles, Ms. Martin humorously remarked, “We were the twins behind the twins.”