Don Martin’s Early Years

Don Martin was born in Silver Creek, N. Y., in Chautauqua County, near Buffalo. Silver Creek is a small town on the shore of Lake Erie. His father, Joseph B. Martin, was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1845 and was of French (father)-Irish (mother) descent. His mother, Rosalie (Rose) Ann Bermont, was born in Escorse, Michigan in 1853 and was of French descent. Joseph Martin moved to Silver Creek in 1864 from Ohio. He married Rose Bermont in Silver Creek in 1871, when he was 26 and she was only 17. Their first child, Alta R. Martin, was born in April 1872. Don Bermont Martin was born next on October 2, 1873. A second son, Roscoe Bermont Martin, was born in 1881 and two years later in 1883 came a second daughter, Julia Bermont Martin. 

Don Martin’s father, Joseph Martin, died at age 60 on April 19, 1905, in Silver Creek, when Don Martin was 31. His mother lived to see Don Martin's death at age 45 in 1918, and to help bring up his daughter, Dorothy. Rose Martin died at age 72 in 1925. 

Don Martin’s older sister, Alta, never married and continued to live in the Buffalo area. His brother, Roscoe, who was called Rock, became head of a local bank. His younger sister, Julia, married Charles T. Howson and lived in Silver Creek. Don Martin was close to his brother and sisters, and exchanged letters frequently while he was covering the war in Europe in 1918. 

Don Martin was a good student. The Silver Creek newspaper reported that he made the Honor Roll, Junior Department, in 1882, when he was 9 years old. And he took up music at an early age. A girl school classmate, in her letter on October 8, 1918 to the New York Herald about Don Martin’s death the day before, recalled that “his musical abilities won him many friends, when but a very tiny little fellow he played in public, his feet dangling from the piano stool." In 1884, when Don Martin was 11, the Silver Creek newspaper reported on his solo singing in a school concert, put on by Professor Baker. In 1886, the newspaper reported that his solo piano piece at a school-closing event demonstrated “rare musical talent.” Don Martin did not pursue musical performance, going into journalism instead.

 Don Martin moved to Buffalo after graduating from High School in 1893, and he began his newspaper career two years later  with the Buffalo Express. He developed early a taste for political writing, although in handling news of any kind he was a reporter and writer of the highest type. 

Don Martin obtained his first big success covering a celebrated murder committed in Buffalo in 1900. His reporting on that case won him recognition. Then when President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo in September 1901 while visiting the Pan American Exposition, Don Martin's graphic description of the assassination attracted attention in parts of the country. Don Martin was particularly proud of a four-part piece, titled "The Story of the Bum," which was published in November-December 1901 in the Buffalo Express Illustrated Sunday editions (original copies are among his surviving papers). His growing reputation resulted in his being brought to New York, first working for The New York American, and in 1904 joining the New York HERALD. 

Don Martin took his time in choosing a wife, but finally found Ida May Masseth, who had come to New York City to study music, having developed a musical reputation as church organist in her hometown of Canandaigua, NY. Ida May's father's family emigrated to upstate New York in 1832 from Alsace. The Masseth's were a mixed French-German (from the Pfalz) family. Ida May was awarded a stipend to study piano at the Julliard School of Music in New York City. There she met Don Martin, 10 years her elder, and they got married on December 27, 1905 in the home of Ida May’s brother in Philadelphia. Don Martin took her for their honeymoon to Washington D.C. and then on a cruise to Jamaica. Ida May bore a daughter, Dorothy Elisabeth, on October 7, 1906. Don Martin’s mother visited Ida May and the baby in New York City in 1907.

Don Martin's wife Ida May, mother Rose and daughter Dorothy, 1907

On April 18, 1908, Ida May Masseth Martin died of diphtheria in New York City. Don Martin became a widower with a daughter of less than two years age. Ida May’s mother immediately took charge of Dorothy, bringing her to Canandaigua to live with her family. A year later, Don Martin’s family took charge of Dorothy, and she was resettled and grew up in Silver Creek in the home of Don Martin’s sister Julia, where Don's mother was living. 

Don Martin had a great affection for his daughter Dorothy, and visited her in Silver Creek as often as his job allowed. He sent his mother money regularly and was a generous giver of gifts to Dorothy on holidays and special occasions.Here is a picture of father and daughter from November 1910.