A teacher, writer, raconteur – and someone who always had a joke at the ready – Allen D. Martin came to be known by many people in the area. It was no surprise, then, that there were plenty of stories as part of the outpouring that followed his death last week.
A man with a wealth of talents and a determination to share them all, Martin’s indefatigable zest for life would be steadily tempered by the relentless onset of the neurodegenerative Parkinson’s Disease. Diagnosed at age 50, Martin would continue to fight the exacting illness for the rest his life, until his passing on January 9 at age 75.
“He always imagined what could be, and how things could be even better than they were, even if they were good, and made the most of every minute that he was breathing,” said Sherri Martin-Carman, Allen’s daughter. “And that was a real testimony to the people who remembered him this week.”
There are many who would have come to know Martin early in their lives, during his lengthy tenure as an educator at Linwood Public School. Others would have crossed paths with him, knowingly or otherwise, at their most dire times, when Martin served as a firefighter with the Floradale station.
Many still would have had Martin with them in their best moments, at their weddings and surrounded by family, where he lent his skill as a photographer. He would have been there at most solemn moments too, at the Floradale Mennonite Church, where Martin would often lead the chorus and graced the audience with his voice. And there are some who might have become acquainted with the man at the breakfast table, in the pages of this very newspaper, where Martin wrote a column, “My Side of the Dam,” for several years.
He would have been so much to so many people in his branching life, and yet he was so much more than the sum of those parts, his daughter contends.
“You can talk about roles he had, that was often how people described him. So you might say a teacher, a father, a firefighter, a photographer, a musician, an artist. There might be words that first come to mind that more have to do with the roles he played in people’s lives,” said Martin-Carman.
However, as the Parkinson’s took its hold, gradually, one by one, those roles slipped away. Martin retired from his teaching career. Similarly, his time with the Woolwich Fire Department came to an end. Writing started to become difficult too; first his penmanship and eventually his column became casualties to advancing illness.
“I think what we reminded ourselves is those roles didn’t define my dad,” said Martin-Carman. One by one, the ephemeral parts of his life fell away, but what endured was the strength of his character, the lives he impacted.
She recalls how former students of his would remember him not for the title he held, but rather for the way that he motivated and inspired them.
“They remember lessons he taught them in science and how he brought science alive. They said he was an inspiration: ‘I chose my career in part because of what your dad taught me.’ And my mouth drops,” she said.
“So you could describe him as a mentor, an inspiration, hard-worker, strength of character, someone who perseveres, and I think those are the qualities that whether you have Parkinson’s for 25 years or not, those parts of him remained.”
But maybe it’s the simple things that people would remember him by the most, such as how he was always quick with a joke. You could run into Allen at the bank, she said, and he was apt to open with a ‘Hey, did you hear about the one … ’
“And that was a hard thing, as the Parkinson’s moved its way through him, that was harder and harder. Because the thing is it took his voice. Like his speaking voice and conversational voice, pretty much by the end was nearly gone or if you could hear it, it was a very low volume,” she said.
It was just around Christmas that her dad’s health took a sharp turn for the worse.
“That just continued and then we also realized he was not really able to sing anymore, and to me that was my sign. You know, ‘OK dad. One of the last blessings that you had to give, the singing, is slipping away from you now too,’” said Martin-Carman.
“His last days were very peaceful. We had family surrounding him, and he just slipped away. And I didn’t want to keep him here any longer because I figured he’s got way more singing he can do up in Heaven. And he’s probably directing a choir of angels by now.
“He’d finished what he’d needed to do here, and I will miss him terribly, but I didn’t wish him to stay because it wasn’t going to get any easier.”
