Margaret L. Martin Lisk

Found on the doorstep, 12 September, 1920, of William (Will) Patrick and Ellen Bridgette Ryan, S. Spielman Rd, Seward, IL. Margaret received a “Certificate of Birth” from Freeport, Il. She became a sister to Fred, Mary, Harriet, and Jim (who was also adopted).

One time while her parents were away on vacation and Fred was out somewhere, she remembers riding her pony and, when she got off to go into the house, her pony followed her up the four steps to the porch. She thought that was so cute so she opened the door and invited him in – well, he went right on in. He didn't stay long because she knew what would happen if anybody found out. She was thrilled to see she had a horse in the living room.

She raised ducks, giving them names, and such, but was unhappy when it came time to sell them. She made $84 in her goal to buy her 1st fur coat in the 8th grade.

There was a well in the basement of the windmill. She remembers there was water dripping from the walls everywhere and all over the floor, which had a huge DEEP hole in the middle of it that she had to step way around. The basement had shelves all along the wall upon which jello and whipped cream was preserved and she would always be sent down there to get. This was one of the reasons she had a lifelong fear/hatred for bodies of water.

She had an old iron bed which she enjoyed painting. She remembers pink and green colors.

She took sewing classes in school. She had a teacher who wouldn't give her an “A”, even though she deserved it for the quality of her work, because she refused to take the additional, to her unnecessary, step of basting (putting needles in to hold the pieces in place, then taking them out again after they were sewn).

Will fell out of a hay mow one summer and broke his back. He wound up with a very large hump on his back that stood out several inches. This was the perfect place for their gold persian cat to rest when he sat in his chair. Will was still able to plow the fields with the horse team, but had difficulty doing other chores. He had hired help to do that work.

It was about this time that Fred took over the farm. They built a small house across the road, where Will, Ellen, and Margaret lived.

She loved being around Will and, so, although she slept upstairs when they lived in the big house, she would work her way downstairs to play at his feet during the times he sat at the dining table playing cards with his friends. One time she was playing there and heard him say, “I don't have any hearts,” and she was helpful and smart enough to chime in with, “yes, you do, right there!”

Margaret remembers the local bread truck that passed through on a regular basis. It was a panel truck or station wagon filled with sweet pastries, sweet bread, bread, treats, doughnuts, and other treats. She remembered the driver opening up the rear doors and haul out big trays of goods. She was allowed to get “anything I wanted,” she remembers. Because the family was so well off she went to school each day, opening up her lunch tin to find bakery bread. One day, suddenly, that came to an end. Her mother gave her and nickel and told her she could only have what she could afford with that. The depression had arrived.

Regardless of their wealth, the family took quite a hit when the Great Depression hit. Margaret had been taking piano lessons in the little house for some time after they had moved the piano across the road from the big house when, suddenly, the teacher no longer visited. Her pony was put in a car or other vehicle and taken to get it's toenails cut at the vet. That had been Fred's responsibility in the past but he quit doing it. The pony never came back. It had been sold. She remembers they had a new phone in the house. It was mounted on the wall and a chair was placed below it to sit on while you talked. They were all party line phones back then. The phone disappeared about this time and everyone felt miserable when that had to go to “Charlotte's house” to use their phone.

Margaret's older sister, Mary, had been saving all her money to purchase a car and kept it in the German-American State Bank, where Will sat on the Board of Directors. Will had gone to Chicago for a bank meeting, wearing a long coat lined with rabbit(?) fur and large square pockets on the outside. (Those pockets were important because when he arrived back home, he always had a large Hershey bar in one of them!) Mary withdrew all her money from the Seward band and purchased the car on Thursday. Nobody else had a car in those days. It was delivered on Saturday, two days after the stock market had plummeted. Everybody blamed Will for knowing that the depression was coming and had told Mary to buy the car while the bank would give her the money.

Fred married Charlotte, a “teacher in Rockford.” One of three girls, she dyed her hair black and cut it short with bangs in the style of flappers. Some time after their marriage, the surrounding neighbors held a shivaree in their honor (a noisy mock serenade performed by a group of people to celebrate a marriage by clanging of pots and pans. After the parade is over, the honorees are obliged to cook dinner for all). Aunt Hatty found out about it and Margaret remembers she made a “pink layer” cake for it. Margaret also remembers days when the groups of thrashers passed through, and it was her and Ellen's task to provide Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Supper to the 23-25 workers on the teams that harvested the family crops. When Charlotte got pregnant, she returned to Rockford where she remained til the birth of their baby, Donna Lee. This was to be the mother of Luke, who chose to do his senior project on research of the family life and interviewed Margaret and videotaped it. Margaret eventually passed the family bible on to him.

One day, Fred needed to get somewhere and wound up riding Colonel (Nel), one of a pair of draft work horses used to do all the farm's work. Margaret had always thought that, if Fred could ride Nel, so could she! One day a cousin showed up and wanted to go for a ride. Dolly, the race horse, was way to spirited for her to ride. That left Margaret with nothing to ride, so she took Nell. She remembers heading south towards Montague Road and, just getting to the edge of the farmhouse yard, she was spied by Dad. It was the only time she ever saw him mad at her. He told her, “you have no business riding Nell.” There was another team that had a strawberry roan as part of the team. They were a pretty feisty pair and, when Margaret threatened to ride the roan, Will said, “Don't ever let me catch you.”

The family bought a section of timber south of Sumner Road when she was in the 6th or 7th grade where they could take the young heifers to summer. It was quite a beautiful section of land with a creek that ran through deep inside. Each year they would move the cattle along the 4 miles of road. It was Margaret's job to ride along on her pony and keep the cattle from veering off course, up into driveways and fields. One day she was escorting about 14 heifers and they had gotten about 300 yards from the final turn onto Sumner Road when they smelled the water trough at the Martin farm and scampered to get some fresh water. It was there that she saw a young boy who was herding two head of cattle.

“What's your name?”, he said.

“Margaret,” she answered.

He wanted to pet her pony and asked, “Will it kick me?”

“No”, she replied.

“Well, mine will,” he said.

“Then keep him away,” she answered.

“Can I get a drink?” , she asked.

“Yes,”

And that was the end of that. On she went.

Margaret was the only Catholic in her elementary and her high school. There was a family that moved in to a house about a half mile from her elementary school. Wood was their name and they had three boys who, whenever she rode by on her pony would throw mud clods at her because they heard she was Catholic.

She went to elementary school at Beuth School on Klinger Road. She could either go to school by going south to Montague Rd, west to the next road, and then north a mile to the school OR she could cut across the corn fields directly. She remembers riding her pony many a time across the fields. The memorable part was when they got to the school there were two fence posts that were very close together that she had to negotiate but they were only wide enough for the pony to get through and NOT her legs, so she had to have her wits about her when she got to them.

She then transferred to Leaf River High School. Their home was on the border between two different school districts. The house that Will had long ago built for Ellen across the road was in the Leaf River district, but the school bus would only come as far as the nearest road intersection at Montague Rd. Will was wealthy enough to pay to have the bus come up the road from that intersection, about a ¼ mile, to pick her up.

She was one of the first to get on the bus and by the time it got close to Leaf River it was quite full. One day they stopped at the Martin farm and that boy got on. None of the other boys wanted anybody sitting with them so he sat with her. She looked for him at school but never saw him.

The next year, when she was a sophomore, she wore a white dress with LARGE red buttons on it. She saw him in the hallway, where he asked, “Do you have a pony?”. “Yes”, she said, continuing, “What class are you in?”

“Freshman,” he replied.

There were only a few seats open on the bus, but he always sat with Margaret. He never forgot that white dress with red buttons.

Later on, in high school, in her sophomore year, she and Jason were invited on a Friday night to a wiener roast in Freeport. When Will and Ellen heard the words “weiner” and “Friday” together, they said no. It was the first thing they wanted to do together. So, typical teenagers, the devised a story that they were going some place else and went anyway! She invited him to her junior and senior prom.

After graduation, she moved to Freeport to live with Harriett while she attended Brown College of Commerce. It was a two year program but, before the end of the 1st year, about April, she was sent to interview for a job because she could take steno at 120 wpm and type over 100 wpm. She was selected to be a stenographer for the president of a curtain rod manufacturer. Later, on her honeymoon, she visited with Ms. Grote, who was one of her commercial teachers.

When dating with Jason during this time, his mother would always ensure that Jason's younger sister would “accompany” them. 8 years younger than Jason, she would pop up from the back seat as they were headed to the fair in Pecatonica, halfway there, and say, “Hello!”

One time they were headed to the timber and his mother was afraid “something might happen” and sent her along. Jason and Margaret told her to go look for berries so they could have some private time and she got lost. Although she was only a short distance away behind some dead growth, she was lost, and they spent quite a bit of time looking for her.

She went to church every other week, as a Catholic priest would come from Pecatonica to say mass at 10:30 or 8:30 on alternating schedules. During the winter they would often take a horse-drawn sleigh, which she despised, because it was so cold. They would have to bundle up quite heavily in blankets and wraps.

When Will died, the entire farm was bequeathed to Fred. The small house went to Mary and Harriet and $1,000 went to the “2 adopted children”, Jim and Margaret. It was called “Seward Estates” due to its size of approximately 260 acres.

Marriage

The Martin family went back East to see relatives where they came from for about a week. Jason, LaVonne and Margaret did the chores while they were away. When they returned, Jason and Margaret headed off for a big event at Jason's school in Champaign.

Actually they eloped.

They fabricated a story that Jason had a big function to attend with a group he was a member in at school in Champaign. In order to go, Margaret would need a nice dress, shoes, hat, purse, and the other things women need. But, to do so, they would need some money. Margaret made $90/month working for Western Newell, east Freeport, a curtain rod manufacturing company, which was very good money in those days, equal to what her sister was making after many years at her job. Dad made living money by waiting tables at a Union Hall at school and regularly gave mom flowers that came off the table centerpieces. But that was not enough. Before the family returned, they sold off all the cabbages in the family garden and a small farm animal, probably a calf. There were always people, during this time, who would stop by and ask to buy things. Margaret remembers standing by the water trough, selling items.

They left on a Friday, expecting to return on Sunday. They had wanted to get married in Illinois and stopped off at a Catholic church somewhere southwest of Egan and found that a blood test would be required, due to an illness that was passing around during this time, possibly spinal meningitis, and results would not be back for several days. They continued on to Iowa, which had no waiting period or blood test requirement, crossing the river border at Savanna and entered Sabula, IA, where they stopped at the first Catholic church they found. The priest lived there in the building. They asked him if he'd marry them and he asked for their credentials. “What?” said Margaret. She been a Catholic all her life and didn't have any credentials. Jason, as a surprise, said, “Here's MINE!”. He had been secretly going to the conversion process at school in Champaign and had taken his first communion there. He had all the papers he needed. So, the priest said he would have to call Margaret's church to ask if she was a member in good standing. Margaret gave him the name “M. Ryan” in the parish of Freeport, as she knew that her older sister “Mary” was one of the largest contributors and participants in the parish. The priest said he would make some calls and they should return at 2:00 PM to complete the ceremony. They found a small travel lodge where they checked in and changed clothes. When they returned, the priest reported that he had received “glowing recommendations” from the Freeport parish staff, along with best wishes “M. Ryan” and her wedding. They were married 5 Sep, 1940. The church janitor acted as one of the witnesses and possibly the organist as another. They spent the weekend in the motor lodge and returned to Egan on Sunday.

They returned to Champaign where Jason resumed his college education and Margaret had several jobs. Jason was drafted into WWII three months before he was graduated and thus began their gypsy way of life.

Oct '46, she received a call from Jason in Germany, asking if she'd like to come over. She said “sure” and left by car and headed to New York, alone, to catch a ship overseas. She stopped and got a room for the night in a boarding house, on Halloween night, and awoke to find all four of her tires were slashed. But she got them repaired and headed on. Jason met her in Bremerhaven and they traveled to Nurenburg where he was involved in preparations for the Nazi War Trials. An interesting story is where he went to Poland to retrieve a prisoner and found he didn't have enough money to return so tried to cash a check, which meant the local Polish bank had to call back to the United States to confirm sufficient funds, and when German-American State Bank was told who it was for, they replied, “sure”. The call made the local newspaper!

Margaret worked as a secretary for General Taylor for three months before Sharron was born in November, '47 and the following month they moved to Berlin, where they experienced the Berlin Airlift, from Jun '48 – May '49. Shortly thereafter, they returned to the United States in time to attend LaVonne's, Jason's sister, wedding. They then purchased a trailer and towed it to Ft Hood, TX, as there were no quaerters available for family members. The only place they could find was in the back yard of a local person Jason had run into at a local convenience store, so they moved in there with their two dogs, Sita (german shepherd) and Pitty Pat (Sky Terrier). During their time here, Sita had a litter and Pitty Pat got run over. It was also a notable time since Jason bought and ENTIRE SET of pots and pans from a travelling salesaman, several of which she still has to this day, having been through tortuaous service camping in Alaska and Germany. Jason was also assigned as an aide to General Star, a position which thrust the two of them into the hierarchy of the Army, preparing them for much of their future service.

Barb was born at Ft Hood, Sep 19, '50 at 3:15 in the morning, delivered by Dr. Stewart. The hospital was so full, Margaret was placed on a litter in the hallway as no rooms were available. During this time, a very young girl walked in to the clinic with her suitcase and said she was there to have a baby. When asked how far along her contractions were, she became confused and finally declared she was there because that was to be “her due date!”

Eighteen days later Jason got order to head for Korea, where he worked debriefing Raider forces.

Upon his return, they were assigned to Ft. Benning, GA, where Jason went through Infantry Officer Advanced Course,

[Fast forward 33 years to 1984, when Jason Jr. arrived at Ft Benning to go through the same course. Margaret came to visit with his family as they temporarily lived in the Guest Quarters on base. They were all sitting around one evening, in the single room, when she started to chuckle and said, “There used to be a sink against that wall, and a sofa along that wall. This bed was over there.” When asked how she knew that, she replied, “Because that's where Jay was conceived when Jason came back from Korea! WE WERE IN THIS VERY SAME ROOM!”]

Upon graduation, they moved to Falls Church, VA. It was here that Jason Jr. decided one Saturday that his daddy had forgotten his briefcase when he left for work, so was going to take it to him. He was found in his diapers walking down the sidewalk, in his diapers, dragging Daddy's briefcase. It is also where Sita saved Margaret from certain assault when a stranger came to the screen door and opened it, saying he had to get in to inspect the freezer. It was only Sita's vicious growl and Margaret's warning that she would bite that got the stranger to back off and leave. This was also the same dog who would not let Jason in the house when he came home from work unless Margaret gave her the OK. :)

Next stop was Ft Leavenworth, KS, for Jason to attend Command and General Staff Officer Course. One special memory was a tornado that rushed through the housing area and left a very large tree laying on top of the house, having come through the roof. Jay Jr also graduated from kindergarten here and the start of first grade was quite eventful. When he asked how he was to get home, his mother said, “Don't worry. Don't go anywhere until your sister, Barbara, comes got get you to get on the right bus!” So he did......and Barbara never came. He sat on the front steps of the school for what seemed an eternity, until Jason Sr came riding up on his blue Vespa scooter and gave him a ride home. It was shortly after that when a German Shepherd attacked Jason as he was riding that scooter, taking a very large bite out of his upper thigh. The Vespa was no longer a member of the family.

They then moved to Champaign, IL, on Green Craft Dr, where they lived in a house memorable for it's cat, Dina (“sittin' in the kitchen with Dina, strummin' on an ole banjo”) and a laundry chute, with which the children played with abandon.

After that, it was on the Alaska. They took a memorable trip in that '57 Plymouth station wagon, traveling all across the country to Seattle, where they attended the 1960 World's Fair (riding the monorail and eating in the Space Needle), and then boarded a ship for the trip north. They lived there three years, discovering the newly admitted state, camping as often as possible. They crossed the Arctic Circle, watched the midnight sun fail to set over Mt McKinley (now known as Denali), made a traumatic crossing of Polychrome Pass (which was barely a one lane gravel road carved out of the side of a vertical mountain with a passing space about every ¼ mile or so), and bathed in natural hot springs. One good memory was of a camping trip where they had loaded the family and several friends of the kids into the car, along with all provisions and fuel needed for a week camping in the wild and set off. They found themselves out in the wilderness trying to get over another remote pass, on a narrow gravel road, with the vehicle so loaded down it couldn't get up the hill. The only remedy was for everybody but Jason to get out of the car and walk up the mountain while he drove. He really enjoyed telling that story. They went fishing out of the port of Valdez, which was wiped out by the earthquake of '62. They fished for salmon in streams so thick with the fish you could literally walk across on their backs. They rode in dogsleds, arctic cats (tracked vehicles), skied, walked to and from school in the dark, made tunnels in snow drifts to get from the house to the street, running through sprinklers to get cool during the summer when it got up to FIFTY FIVE degrees, and fished for hooligans, pulling them from the water eight at a time with fishnets and putting them in garbage cans, where they would be taken home, cleaned, and delivered to a business that would smoke them, so they tasted like a fish jerky. They enjoyed having huge moose come look in the kitchen window during the winter. They spent a week processing meat from several Caribou that Jason and Jay brought home from a hunting trip, constantly grinding three different grinders, making sausage, hamburgers, and cutting up steaks.

Margaret began her cake decorating career here, having several of her creations featured in local publications. She was a member of the both the Women's Curling Team and the Mixed Doubles Curling Team that both one First Place in the Alaskan State Championships. She was leader of the “Our Lady of the Snows Sodality” organization. She was a Girl Scout Leader and a Cub Scout Den Mother.

She and Jason introduced their children into society, teaching them their manners, by taking them to the Officers Club every Sunday after church for the buffet.

Since this was well into the beginning of the Cold War Era, they were required to keep “K” rations and fresh water in the basement, know where the local “fallout” shelter was located, and practice hiding under desks when the Air Raid siren blared once a month.

That was the beginning of quite a life with the Martins. It continued on through posting in Philadelphis, Germany again, Korea (where Margaret returned to Rockford, IL, while Jason worked to recover the USS Pueblo from North Korea), and then to a retirement tour at Ft Shafter, Hawaii.

She served as head of various groups, including the Officers' Wives Club, Bowling leagues, etc. She was a respected hat designer, Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout Den Mother, and bridge instructor, President of the Our Lady of the Snows Sodality. She and Jason were President and First Lady of the European Association of American Square Dance Clubs and members of the Championship Alaskan State Mixed Doubles Curling Team in 1961. Upon retirement in 1972, they moved back to Rockford. She has since been an active member of the St Rita Catholic Church and their Love Fund. Widowed in 1981, she was director of a widows recovery group.

Margaret is survived by her daughter, Barbara Anne Holmes; son, Jason H. Martin Jr.; numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. She is predeceased by her parents, Will and Ellen Ryan; husbands, LTC Jason H. Martin and COL Frank Lisk; daughter, Sharron Marie Martin Conerly; brothers, Fred and Jim; and sisters, Helen and Mary.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 at 10:30 am at St. Rita Catholic Church, 6254 Valley Knoll Drive, Rockford, IL 61107. A public visitation will be on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 from 4:30 - 6:30 pm at Fitzgerald Funeral Home & Crematory, 1860 S. Mulford Road, Rockford, IL 61108. 

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to St. Anne Nursing Home, 4405 Highcrest Road, Rockford, IL 61109.

Margaret's Addresses:

S. Spielman Road, Seward, IL

Freeport, IL

Champaign, IL

Egan, Il

Berlin, Germany

Nurenburg, Germany

Ft Hood, TX

Ft Benning, Ga

Falls Church, VA

Ft Leavenworth, KS

Greencroft Dr, Champaign, IL

Temp quarters, Ft Richardson

1-B Juneau Ave, Ft Richardson

65 E Levering Mill Rd, Bala Cynwood, PA

22 (attic) San Juan Hill, Patrick Henry Village, Heidelberg, Germany

9-B Gettysburg Dr, Patrick Henry Village, Heidelberg, Germany

Halsted Apartments, Halsted, Rockford, IL

Temp Quarters, Belenski Lane, Schofield Barracks, Wahiawa, Hawaii

915 Hase Drive, Ft Shafter, Hawaii

Jackson St, Rockford, IL

7056 Montmorency Dr, Rockford, IL