Katherine Eunice Martin

Katherine Eunice Martin, youngest of the four children of Nathaniel Martin (the younger) and Kittie B. Bolender, was born 5 November 1916. She was known as Katy. Her birthplace is firmly known to have been in Illinois, but the precise locale is not quite confirmed. Until the mid-1910s, her father was employed at the Illinois Central Railroad depot in Kerrick, McLean County, IL, and that was where the family lived. But he was transferred north, spent brief intervals at two or more interim posts, and then became the stationmaster at McConnell, Stephenson County, IL. He would continue to be employed there until the mid-1930s. However, the precise timing of the departure from Kerrick and the arrival in McConnell is still unverified and clearer documentation is needed to verify where Katy began life. It is accurate to describe her hometown as McConnell in the sense that she was definitely living there before the age of two, and then grew to adulthood as a resident of the community.

“Katy” was more than a nickname. It was her identity, because she never truly moved past childhood. She contracted scarlet fever when she was eight years old. The sustained high temperature caused such brain damage that she experienced no further mental and emotional development -- she was in essence stuck at age eight. She therefore remained under the care of her parents until their deaths in the early 1960s. She was able to help with such chores as dusting, vacuuming, washing dishes, and helping to prepare meals, but was incapable of independence.

During the 1930s, Nathaniel Martin was transferred to the depot in Orangeville, about four miles northwest of McConnell. He may have commuted to this job for a period, but some time after the middle of the decade, i.e. about the time Katy was turning twenty years old, the family moved into a house in Orangeville. This home served as Katy’s residence for more than half a century. For obvious reasons, she never married and never produced offspring.

Katy’s sister Alice moved back into the family home in 1943 after a few years on her own. Alice’s brief marriage had not panned out and, pregnant and single, she felt she needed the haven of her old home. As it happened, Alice never did move out again, so when Nathaniel and Kittie passed away, she was there to continue to be Katy’s guardian and Katy did not have to relocate. This remained the arrangement until well into the 1980s, until Alice’s health failed and she entered Monroe Manor, a nursing home in Monroe, Green County, WI. Unwilling to force Katy to abandon the home she had occupied for so many decades, Alice asked next-door neighbors to keep an eye on her. This was obviously a stop-gap measure, but it proved to be sufficient because Katy soon developed breast cancer. After surgery, she was admitted to Pleasant View Nursing Home in Monroe, and then spent the last two or three weeks of her life at St. Clare Hospital, also in Monroe. She died Monday morning, 11 August 1986. Despite being hospitalized sooner than Katy, Alice survived another two months. The two sisters were the last of their birth family to pass away.

Katy’s remains were interred at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens near Freeport, Stephenson County, IL two days after her death, Rev. Debra Heap officiating. Her grave is near the resting places of her parents and other family members.

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