COLMESNEIL – “She was always wanting to improve things” is how the late Frances Martin was remembered by her granddaughter Cera Johnston.
Martin, who died on Wednesday, June 24, at the age of 91, was a multi-faceted and multi-talented community leader, businesswoman and tireless example of determination and old-fashioned values to her family and friends.
Martin owned and operated Martin’s True Value Hardware in Colmesneil for nearly 30 years and retired in 2008. Although mobility issues had limited her activities in recent years, her daughter said she was still a “very positive person,” and one who “loved being a part of the community and loved socializing,” according to her granddaughter Cera.
Walter McAlpin, a longtime staple in the Colmesneil ISD community as an administrator and teacher, and within the city, as a community leader, called Martin a dear friend and said she possessed too many attributes to name, but a few stood out to him, he said, “grit, tenacity, honesty, caring, positive and an extremely hard worker.”
McAlpin added that Martin “loved supporting her grandchildren in all extracurricular activities at the school. She sat close to the action greeting friends and encouraging not only her grandchildren, but all the players.”
Martin was also active in her church, Our Lady of the Pines, and as one of the parish’s founding members, she “was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic lady,” said her friend and fellow parishioner Billie Matthews.
“She worked her whole life to be considered a Catholic lady. She was very proud of her religion,” Matthews said.
Martin was active in many of the avenues and outreach endeavors of the church, but it is one innovative fundraising idea that friends and family say she will likely be remembered for, in the church history: the sugar eggs.
For several years, Martin crafted panoramic Easter eggs with molded sugar shells. It is a craft that she learned how to do at the YMCA when she was young, her granddaughter Cera said.
Those eggs helped raised thousands of dollars each year for the church, particularly for the Altar Society, Matthews said.
Her grandson Daniel Johnston joked that it was hard to keep the eggs intact as a child, and Cera said “we were always breaking ‘em and picking pieces of the icing and sugar off and eating it.”
Martin was so devoted to the church that in 2010 the church directory was dedicated to her, and noted her “immeasurable” talents and creativity, and that “her energy is boundless and her faith is unswerving.”
As a businesswoman, Martin’s hardware store in Colmesneil was renowned, for many years, as the place where shoppers could find just about anything they needed. McAlpin said “the inventory in her store was phenomenal.”
“I could be coming in from a trip, call the store, tell them what I needed, and it would be sitting on the front porch of the store ready for me to pick up when I came through,” he said.
Aside from the usual hardware staples, as well as plumbing and electrical supplies, Martin also stocked housewares, children’s toys and arts and craft supplies.
“It was incredible. She tried to make it a place for everybody,” Cera said.
Her daughter Diane Sanderson started working for her in 1981 at age 16. She called her mother her mentor, and said she taught her everything about the trade, as well as about plumbing.
Martin also instilled in her daughter, as well as her grandchildren, some of the basic storekeeping operations, chief among them, the skill of counting change back, which Diane, Daniel and Cera all said they learned from her.
Sanderson recalled how her mother’s kindness also served as part of her business acumen, with her practice of allowing customers to charge items if they didn’t have much money.
Martin’s ability to rationalize and make the best of whatever challenges were put before her, along with her resourcefulness and refusal to waste anything could be attributed to her upbringing. She was born August 16, 1934 in Portland, Oregon during the Great Depression.
Martin’s service in the Navy, from 1953-1955, where she served as Hospital Corpsman Third Class, brought her to Texas, where she married and had six children.
Even up to her last days, before she went into the hospital with sepsis, Martin was still involved and still doing what she could for her community.
“The Sunday before she went to the hospital, she pulled up her wheelchair to me and said she was working on making some additions to the church history,” Matthews said. “I told her, ‘Now Frances, you take care of yourself because I want to know the rest of this story’.”
Cera Johnston said that her grandmother should be remembered as someone who was always wanting to improve things around her, and that if anyone wants to do anything to honor her, they should commit to something that improves the place where they live.
“She was always helping out,” Daniel Johnston said. “She was a person who cared about everything.”
