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Robert Martin with wife, Norma. "She was a rose
picked from an old family tree," he says of his
"Tennessee Rose". "She's still the prettiest gal I
know of." |
Robert Martin's life changed in midstream during the
spring of 1950 when he stopped to give 18 year-old Norma
Bullington a ride to her grandmother's house. At 34,
Robert had shouldered alone the care of his two daughters,
Roberta and Judy, his wife Marlene having died in
childbirth with their second daughter ten years earlier.
Robert had known Norma since she was born, and as Robert
was no stranger to her either, she chattered the whole
journey, according to Robert.
"She talked, talked, talked, and before I got home I
decided I was going to marry her," he says. The couple
courted from May until July when Robert decided he would
ask her just one time to marry him.
"I wasn't going to beg her," he says, "but she was making
plans all the time."
The couple married on August 5 and Norma happily joined
her ready-made family.
"I couldn't never find one that would beat her, she's been
a mother to all of the kids. They love her as much as I
do," he begins, then says, "No they don't, because that is
impossible."
"I raised them all alike," says Norma, including the
children born later to herself and Robert: Eddie and Libby
(Elizabeth).
Then, with a twinkle in his eye, Robert says,
tongue-in-cheek, "She's a wonderful mother and they know
it and they pet her. I don't pet her; we do just as she
pleases and we get along fine."
Norma is quick to respond, "I didn't take on two young'uns,
I took on three; he was the biggest kid of all."
Robert's conversation is speckled with humor, the
mischievous glint in his eyes betraying the half-serious
tone with which he delivers his punch lines.
"I took her for better or worse, but she was really worse
than I took her to be," teases Robert, who always follows
up with something sweet.
"She was a rose picked from an old family tree," he
declares. "That made me write the Old Tennessee Rose;
she's still the prettiest gal I know of."
Writing songs comes naturally to Robert, who has written
some 40 songs, though he doesn't recall how he learned to
play the guitar, banjo and fiddle and "a little bit on the
piano." He simply grew up in a musical family.
"My daddy was a musician and his daddy was a musician,"
says Robert, whose four brothers and three sisters - Ezra,
Calvin, Fred, Gene (deceased), Jewell, Mamie Ruth
(deceased), and Ruby Nell - were also gifted musically.
In fact, "The Martin Boys" still sing and play together
every Wednesday at one of the nursing homes or retirement
centers in the area.
"I'm going to get every speck of pleasure I can get out of
my life as long as I can move," declares Robert. That he
derives his favorite pleasures from the simple things in
life - family, friends, and church - puts the odds in his
favor that he will achieve that goal.
He learned at an early age to appreciate the small things
in life. Born January 27, 1916 into a family that
eventually had eight children to feed, his farming parents
had little to offer out of the ordinary, though ordinary
was enough.
"I remember mostly that peach tree limb that mom used,"
Robert says with that familiar gleam in his eyes. "'Course
we worked at our house - all of us - we was farmers. Dad
had an idea if you didn't work you wasn't supposed to
eat."
Complaining didn't go far either, as brother Gene
discovered one day at the supper table when he decided
he'd had enough of beans and potatoes.
"He said, 'I'm getting tired of this,'" Robert relates.
"Dad said, 'You get up from here - don't you take another
bite.' Them beans tasted a whole lot better from then on."
Joking aside, he says, "We had a fine daddy and a loving
mother; they were strict but they were good. Mostly what I
remember is going to the swimming hole on Saturdays,
fishing with Dad, and playing baseball."
Though he "quituated" from high school, Robert graduated
from Biggerts Elementary School after the eighth grade.
Times were hard in the early 1930's with few real jobs to
be had. Robert recalls "picking cotton on the Mississippi
River for 30 cent a hundred (pounds), working on the farm
and hewing cross ties for a dime a piece." He worked as a
lumber jack, at the sawmill, and "everything else", at one
time clearing land from daylight until dark for 50 cents
per day.
"I worked wherever I could get a job; I've had a lot of
jobs," he says.
In the late 'thirties Robert helped build the Milan
Arsenal, a job that was completed by 1941 before the
United States entered World War II in December.
By the time Robert and Norma married in 1950, Robert was
working for the Arsenal's Fire Department. Soon, however,
the couple traveled to the less humid climes of Texas, New
Mexico, and Florida in an effort to battle Norma's asthma.
Robert worked at the Army-Air Base in Edenberg, Texas and
at Clovis and Rosewell Air Force Bases in Mew Mexico for
some 15 years where he was "an inspector most of the time
and an instructor the rest of the time."
Already fighting a calling to Christ's ministry, Robert
found no relief in his travels.
"I fought the ministry for seven years," he declares. "I
went to New Mexico, Texas, everywhere I went God was
there."
It was in Edinberg that Robert, beside himself, was
driving past an orange grove on his way to work when he
stopped.
"In my mind, the door opened and the Lord sat down beside
me," Robert shares, "I knew the presence of God then, and
I asked, 'What do you want me to do?'"
"Turn loose of yourself and you'll be alright," came the
answer in Robert's heart.
Thus giving in after years of fighting, he started
straightaway to establish the Adobe Baptist Church in
Edinburg, later preaching in New Mexico before returning
to Tennessee.
Back home in McLemoresville, Robert returned to the Milan
Arsenal, this time as an ammunitions inspector. The civil
service job required a college degree, says Robert, so he
studied hard in order to pass a proficiency test that
would grant him the required education for the job.
ORIGINAL INDEPENDENCE FULL GOSPEL CHURCH: The
original Independence Full Gospel Church,
established by Pastor Robert Martin, his wife Norma
and a faithful congregation. The building was once
the old one-room Independence Schoolhouse in
McLemoresville. |
He also set up a new church, starting an
interde- nominational mission in the "old Indepen- dence
School house" in McLemoresville. "It was just a pigeon
roost," Robert says today of the one-room school building.
Indeed, there were times when Ms. Lonie White taught
Sunday School from a van, when it was cold, or outside at
the picnic table during milder seasons. They called their
church the Independence Full Gospel Church.
The congregation, though small, shared their pastor's
vision of a new church home and, starting with just one
penny, they began a building fund. In faith they saved
throughout the years, until in 1971 they were able to buy
land for the new building.
"We worked along as we got money," says Robert, "The more
money we got the more we worked on it."
Robert worked on the church during the day, going in to
work at the Arsenal from 4:00 p.m. until midnight. Once
the church was finished in 1974, he went to straight days
at the Arsenal.
"We're proud of our church and everybody in it," says
Robert and Norma, citing other workers who helped build
the church. In keeping with tradition, the new church was
named the New Independence Full Gospel Church. A penny,
representing that first cent that started their building
fund years ago, was built into the window sill of the new
building.
A stroke at the age of 63 left Robert paralyzed on his
left side for awhile and ended his employed with the Milan
Arsenal after 20 years, one month and 20 days with the
company. Since then, two pacemakers help keep Robert going
strong.
After preaching for 47 years at the Independence churches,
Robert's prayers were answered when George Sellers
accepted his own calling and took the helm of the church
as pastor.
Robert Martin accepts a plaque from New Independence
Full Gospel Church Pastor George Sellers in honor of
47 years of tireless service to the church and its
members. |
It was one of the highlights of Robert's life when on June
15 this year the congregation honored him with a plaque
that reads, "The congregation of New Independence Full
Gospel Church would like to express our appreciation and
love for all the many, many years of dedicated service and
hard work. Without your effort there would not have been a
church here today. You have faithfully served God, the
community and the congregation of New Independence Full
Gospel Church. May God bless you."
"It's been a wonderful journey being with people like
that," says Robert. "The love and appreciation the church
has showed me has been wonderful. I hope I made a
satisfactory minister all these years and wish I could go
through them again. I want to thank the people in the
church and the people who contributed for all the help,
all the support and prayers they gave us down through the
years."
Norma agrees: "We thank God every day. Probably no one has
ever been treated any better than we've been treated. They
have been wonderful, so good to us. They gave us birthday
presents and Christmas presents."
Joan Sellers, Pastor George Seller's wife, smiles
knowingly, "He would never take a salary for preaching,
only love offerings at revivals."
"That was my dream - my dream come true," Robert says.
"Where anybody called me to preach I'd go. Like the
Apostle Paul in Second Timothy, 'I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them
also that love his appearing.'"
Sharing pearls of wisdom, Robert says, "Prayer is the
greatest force there is in existence."
"I've lived a common life, I'm a common man," he says. "I
never had nothing much and I don't reckon I needed
anything. I am what I am and that's all that I am, and I
don't know if I'd be any different if I could help it."
Besides their four children, Robert and Norma have seven
grandchildren and five great grandchildren. |
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