October 16: Don Martin goes home to Silver Creek, New York

          It was, finally, in January 1920 that Don Martin’s remains could be transported across the ocean to New York. With the assistance of the two Don Martin Posts of the American Legion, his body was brought to his hometown of Silver Creek, New York and a funeral took place on January 29, 1920. The Silver Creek News of January 29, 1920 published the  following report.

FUNERAL OF DON MARTIN 

WAS HELD THIS AFTERNOON

Services In Charge of Don Martin Post No. 148 

American Legion - Tribute From George R. McIntyre

             The body of Don Martin, New York Herald correspondent, who died in France, October 7, 1918, arrived here Wednesday accompanied by Wellington Wright of the Herald staff, Commander of Don Martin New York Herald Post, American Legion. Mr. Wright was in France at the time of Don Martin’s death. Mr. Martin’s body was brought home on the steamship La Savoie which sailed from Havre January 17 and arrived in New York on Tuesday. On the steamer a stateroom was arranged as a mortuary chapel and was under guard of two sailors day and night throughout the voyage. On arriving in New York Don Martin New York Herald Post took charge and brought the body to this village. Here, Don Martin Post, the second to be named in honor of Mr. Martin, took charge. Members of the Post met the Pennsylvania train and escorted the body to the Presbyterian Church where a guard of honor was stationed until the hour of the funeral.

                   The funeral of Mr. Martin was held at the Presbyterian Church at 2 o’clock this afternoon. Rev. C. H. Dudley conducted the services which consisted of reading of several selections of Scripture, a brief address, the reading of a tribute of George R. McIntyre of the Chicago American, a boyhood friend of Mr. Martin, prayer and benediction. The Honor Roll of the Presbyterian Church, containing between 50 and 60 names of which the only gold star represents Mr. Martin’s name, was read. The casket was draped with the American flag and surrounded with a large number of beautiful floral tributes.

                   The active bearers were selected from the Navy Men of the Don Martin Post. The honorary bearers were John Knox, J. O. Bennett, Henry Martin, Bert Barnes, Bert Brooks, George H. Shofner, M. L. Barbeau, Leon H. Brand, W. J. Brand, C. G. Jackle, Wallace Imus.

                   The burial service was conducted at the grave in Glenwood cemetery by Don Martin Post No. 148.

Mr. McIntyre’s Tribute

                    The following tribute to the memory of Don Martin was received a few days ago by George V. Barbour, and was read today at Mr. Martin’s funeral:

                  “Don Martin was of the type of newspaper men that make one glad that he is a member of the profession.

                  He was more than a newspaper man. He was a man, and when I have said that it seems to me that I have paid him the highest tribute that can be paid to any man, for he possessed to the full every manly quality.

                     My earliest remembrance of Don Martin was on a sunny morning when my mother went next door to see his mother, Mrs. Martin. I waited in the living room and presently my mother came out of a bedroom with a little bundle on her arms. She partially opened it and I looked down on the baby face of Don Martin. As a boy it did not interest me until the baby, looking up at me wrinkled his face into a smile. That smile seemed to just transform little Don’s face. It was the same kind of a smile that I remembered years afterward; it was the index of the sunny, optimistic nature of Don Martin.

                   He was never afraid to tackle any task. Nothing was too great for him to try, and he always went at it with that same cheerful smile of his. I can imagine that smile spreading over his face when the managing editor of the New York Herald assigned him to go to France as a war correspondent.

                   We know the history of his work over there. He faced it with the same indefatigable energy with which he prosecuted all his newspaper work. He left nothing to guesswork—he was always sure of his facts. He always knew whereof he wrote, and when an article appeared in the Herald under his name the reader could be sure that every word was true.

                      Systematic, careful, unsparing of himself he was a man who had every consideration for those who worked under  him, and throughout his arduous work at the front he had time always to remember the loved ones at home and to write to them.

                    Don Martin was as truly a soldier as any of the men who shouldered guns to drive back the German hosts, and I am sure he was just as truly a loving son, a kind and loving husband and father.

                    All honor to him. I have heard that two American Legion Posts are named after him. I have read the eulogies written by his co-workers and those who were close to him in the arduous work of recording the daily progress of the greatest war in the world’s history. I ask only the privilege of adding my humble praise, my laurel wreath to the memory of Don Martin. 

                    When the real history of the Great War is written, I am sure that Don Martin’s name and the work he did will find a place in it.

                     Short though his life was, we who knew him knew that he did not live in vain.

                     To those of his family who survive I would give the comforting thought that Don Martin has truly died for his country as the men who faced the bullets, and though he is dead his name will live.”

Sincerely,

GEORGE R. McINTYRE

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               Here are Reverend Dudley’s remarks at the January 29, 1920 funeral service.

             Don Martin belonged to the world. He passed away in a far land where civilization was in its death throes. The Great of the earth have had their say of him and tenderly, beautifully, eloquently have they said it. And now, at last, all that is mortal of him is brought back to us who loved him first and it is right that we should have him last. He was baptized in this church; in his youth he was a member of the choir of this church and he was more closely affiliated with it than with any other church in the world, and now it is altogether fitting and right that this church, like a bereaved and mourning Mother, should open its arms once more to clasp the form of her child before it is borne to its last resting place.

                       Nearly four thousand years ago when the aged patriarch, Jacob, was about to go to his last home, he called his Sons about him, for he was in a strange land, and he exacted of them the promise that he should not be buried in alien soil but taken back to his home land and buried in the cave of Machpelah, for, he said, “there Abraham and Sarah his wife were buried, and there Isaac and Rebecca his wife were buried and there I buried Leah,” and he wanted his dust to mingle with their dust for it is the homing instinct of the human heart. The story is told of a little child three years old who delighted in hearing animal stories told by his Father and Mother, and when they could not gratify his desire, he was wont to tell stories to himself of the most ravenous beasts, the most blood curdling tales of lions, tigers, etc. but he would invariably end the story by saying – “so him went home to him’s Muvver” – the abiding instinct in the heart of a little child.

                       In Second Kings, the fourth chapter, the story is told of a worthy family of Israel to whom a little son was born late in life. When a small boy he went with his Father to the fields and was prostrated by a sun-stroke; his Father said, “Take him home to his Mother.” So, two great Governments of the earth said of him whom we mourn today – “carry him across the seas to his Mother and his kindred and his old neighbors and let him sleep there.”

                    Distinguished men craved the privilege of standing in this place, at this hour, that they might pay their last tribute to him who has gone from us. I freely offered and urged the use of this church to the family for whatever disposition they might make of these requests that came in, but they said these last hours belonged to old friends and neighbors, and they should have them exclusively. They believed, also, it was in accord with the simplicity of tastes and character of Don himself, and it was their desire that this service should be yours. I also asked the privilege of reading some of the remarkable tributes the great men of this generation wrote; again I was told by the family that this was not to be a service of praise and eulogy but only where love would bring love’s offering to lay on this altar of affection. There is only one exception and that is a part of a letter from an old newspaper friend of Don’s, a Silver Creek boy, George McIntyre, now a distinguished man of Chicago, and I read these excerpts from his letter which is all that is permitted of the letters that have come from the four quarters of the earth.

Follows the reading of said letter

               Don Martin was born in 1872 in this Village. From childhood he was interested in newspaper work and handled newspapers in this Village. About the year 1890 when he was 18 years of age, he went to Buffalo and secured a position on the Courier; afterwards he was a reporter and wrote on the Buffalo Express. Outgrowing, in early youth, all that Buffalo could do for him or offer to him, he secured a position on the New York Journal and soon afterwards transferred to the New York Herald which he served some 12 to 15 years and where speedily he became known as one of the best newspaper men in North America. About the year 1906 he was married but his home life was the briefest. One little daughter survived, whose home is in our midst, whom we all know and love. He passed away at Neuilly, France, in October 1918. I have seen the letter written by the great General, Pershing, to Don’s Mother, wherein besides his testimony to Don as a man, it is the word of that soldier who always carefully weighed what he said, that the life and death of Don Martin were as courageous and patriotic and as serviceable to this Country and to the World as that of any soldier who fell in the front line trenches.

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                     This church was privileged to send a vast array of young men to the front, as that Service Flag bears witness. In the providence of God they were all spared but this one, and at the top is the gold star which this church will enshrine forever in its archives to the memory of him who laid down his life in that great field of service for which so many millions gave their lives. A service was conducted by Dr. Goodrich, Pastor of the American church in Paris, and in the vaults of that church his remains were placed until they could be borne across the seas, back to us for this sacred hour and service. I have some words I found that came to my mind as a beautiful expression of what we can all believe of his immortal spirit.

Reading of poem

                 Don Martin was probably the most gifted and successful of all the Sons of Silver Creek; we were proud of him for what he achieved but we loved him for what he was. Great as were his abilities, greater still were the qualities of his personality and of his heart. The greatest men of this generation loved him, trusted in him, and were proud to be called his friends. He always moved with the same simplicity and integrity, whether in the halls of the mighty or in the humble homes and streets of our Village. If there be comfort in a great name, there is comfort for those who loved him; if there be consolation in great qualities of the mind, there is that comfort for those who loved him. But above all, there is this consolation that wraps itself most closely around a mourning heart, that those who knew him best and longest were also those who loved him most truly and most tenderly. His going from us has impoverished our earthly treasures but it has enriched our anticipation of that land where he has taken a life so noble and a heart so tender.

“Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!

   And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark!

   And may there be no sadness of farewell when I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place the flood may bear me far,

   I hope to see my Pilot face to face, when I have crost the bar.”

1901

1917

    [“Crossing the Bar,” Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1890]

DON MARTIN 1918