Marta Pärna was born on December 1, 1867, in Rannu, Tartu County. She graduated from Tallinn Higher Girls' School with a home tutor qualification in 1887. She furthered her studies at the university in the field of history and linguistics.
She worked as a home tutor in Vyatka, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Ukraine from 1889 to 1903, and as a German language teacher and assistant head at E. Levitski’s private gymnasium in Czarskoe Selo from 1903 to 1908.
In 1908, the Estonian-minded Valga city government invited Marta Pärna to become the headmistress of the girls' gymnasium. She is considered the first Estonian principal of a gymnasium in Estonia. She worked as the principal of Valga Girls' Gymnasium until 1932.
The school was both her workplace and residence. Marta Pärna also worked as translator of fiction and popular science literature. She died in 1939 and, as the niece of Carl Robert Jakobson, she was buried at the Jakobson family cemetery in Kurgja.
