Alice Zada Martin

Alice Zada Martin, daughter of Nathaniel Martin (the younger) and Kittie B. Bolender, was 4 March 1913 in Kerrick, McLean County, IL, near Bloomington. By the time she was a toddler, and perhaps when she was still only an infant, the family moved to McConnell, Stephenson County, IL. Her father became the stationmaster for Illinois Central Railroad at the depot there. Alice would grow up with no lasting memory of her pre-McConnell days and it is fair to characterize the village as the place she was “from.” She was one of four children raised there, the rest being her older brothers Kenneth and Max and her younger sister Katy.

A bright student, Alice was allowed to skip second grade. As a result, she graduated from Winslow High School in 1930 as part of the same class year as her brother Max. Several other members of the Martin-Strader clan attended that institution with her, including Alice’s first cousins Leon and Lyle Smith. Her father, whose siblings had also attended Winslow High (as he would have done had the school existed when he was in his mid-teens), was a trustee on the school’s board of directors during the whole time Alice was a student there.

Due to the downsizing of Illinois Central infrastructure, Alice’s father was transferred in the 1930s to the depot in Orangeville, a few miles from McConnell. Precisely when this transfer happened isn’t clear. The family is known to have moved to Orangeville in either 1935, 1936, or 1937, but it is possible Nathaniel had already been working at his new post for a few years by the time that move occurred. Alice was part of the relocation, as was Katy. As it turned out, Alice would spend over half of her life in that Orangeville home, but this was not her plan. In the early 1940s, she established an independent life for herself as a factory worker in Freeport, the “big town” of Stephenson County. There she met co-worker Clarence Frederick Siegmeier. The two became romantically involved. They were wed 25 March 1943. But despite the pair’s relative maturity (age thirty for Alice, thirty-six for Clarence) the marriage faltered almost at once, even before the culmination of the pregnancy that resulted in the birth of their first child. Alice took shelter with her parents back in Orangeville so as to have a means of coping with what would otherwise have been single motherhood. The arrangement became permanent. Her parents were accustomed to having an adult child at home because Katy Martin had suffered brain damage as the result of a bout of scarlet fever in 1925, and had thereafter been unable to progress beyond the mental and emotional age of eight.

(Shown at right, Alice as a high school senior.) Clarence Siegmeier was a son of Henry Siegmeier and Emmeline Goetz. Born 17 February 1907 in Freeport, Clarence had become fatherless before turning three years old, after which his mother had raised him and his older brother Edward on her own, taking in boarders to make ends meet. Freeport was becoming an industrial-hub city in the early decades of the Twentieth Century, and Clarence had no need to venture elsewhere in order to find work. As a young adult, while still living with his mother, he had been hired by Newell Manufacturing Company, a large company based in Ogdensburg, NY that had opened its Freeport facility in order to make curtain rods. Later the plant was refitted to supply a variety of products for the home from cookware to cosmetics to window treatments to writing implements. (The firm still exists under the name Newell-Rubbermaid.) Clarence spent his whole career with Newell, though he retired a little early due to bad health. He died 20 September 1971 in Freeport. He was almost entirely uninvolved with the raising of his progeny, leading to an absent-father scenario that mirrored his own upbringing. However, from time to time his mother would have her grandchild over for visits, and her home was also Clarence’s home, so the child was aware of being a Siegmeier and did continue to be known by the surname.

In her early period of parenthood, Alice worked at a local hardware store. After that business closed down, she took correspondence courses to become a dental assistant and succeeded in obtaining a job with an Orangeville dentist, Dr. Vernon Best. This became a long-term employment situation.

Nathaniel Martin died in 1960 and Kittie Martin in 1963. By the time of the latter event, Alice’s kid was already out of high school and Alice might well have been looking at starting over at fifty as a “footloose and fancy free” single gal. But the issue of Katy was paramount. It was Nathaniel and Kittie’s wish that that house not be sold, but that it be used as Katy’s sanctuary for as long as possible. It had been Alice who had shared that home and been a part of Katy’s life day-to-day for many years. Either of Alice’s brothers, having already finished raising their offspring to full adulthood, were in a position to leap in and give her a break, but they declined to do so, so Alice assumed primary custody of Katy for the long haul. The two sisters shared the Orangeville dwelling all the way up into the early 1980s. Finally at that point, Alice’s health deteriorated, requiring her to enter a nursing home. The facility chosen was Monroe Manor in Monroe, Green County, WI. She died there 10 October 1986. Her remains were interred at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens near Freeport, near the graves of her parents, of Katy (who had pre-deceased Alice by two months), and of her brother Kenneth.

Here is the junior class of Winslow High School as portrayed in the 1929 Win-Nel, the yearbook. Alice is third from left in the middle row. Three male relatives were in her class year and are shown in the front row: Leon Elton Smith on the far left, Ray Elwood Bucher next to him, and second from the right edge is Alice’s brother Roscoe Maxwell Martin.

Descendants of Alice Zada Martin with Clarence Frederick Siegmeier

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