Martha Templeton
by Joyce Tepley
January, 2011
NOTE: Regretfully Martha died in June 2013 at the age of 91. She was a wonderful neighbor and will be dearly missed. Those of us who’s lives she touched are much better off for having known her.
Life hasn’t always been a piece of cake for Martha but you couldn’t tell it by her attitude. Celebrating her 90th birthday last November, Martha keeps busy. “If you keep busy, you don’t have time to feel bad.” Lunches with friends, dinners with family, welcoming new neighbors, maintaining her home, patrolling with the neighborhood crime watch group, and on and on. She admitted that she had to cut back some on her volunteering due to health concerns, like macular degeneration, a broken arm, surgery on her foot in the last couple years, but none of that put a dent in her cheerful attitude. Her smile and sense of humor are an inspiration.
Martha was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Because her mother died when she was quite young, she was raised by her grandparents and a large number of aunts and uncles. She said, “I learned very young that if I wanted something I would go to my grandmother first. If that didn’t work I would just go to the next aunt or uncle, then on down the line until I would get what I wanted.” That charming resourcefulness paid off since she was the youngest grandchild at that time.
After high school Martha attended, a Junior College in Little Rock then went on to a fashion design institute in Chicago. Though she and her future husband, Ralph, were at the same high school and had friends in common, they were never introduced to each other until later. He must have had his eye on her from afar, because he wrote her a note saying, “When we get married…..” They married in 1943. She kept the note and cherishes it to this day.
They lived in California during the war years with Ralph working at North American Air making airplanes. After the war, they returned to Little Rock and then found their way to Dallas in 1950. Both their son and daughter were born here. Later Ralph was offered a job as a sales person for an industrial chemicals company in California so it was back to the west coast for eight years. They returned to Dallas where he became manager of a similar company and she worked as a secretary to the Director of Health Services with the Department of Health and Human Services. They led an active social life. Every Friday they would have dinner with a small group of their friends, and she and Ralph took up square dancing. She was also involved in three book clubs and volunteered at her church – Lovers Lane Methodist.
Unfortunately, she lost Ralph to a heart attack in 1983. He was almost sixty. Her philosophy of staying busy and having a full time job helped get her through the grief. She retired in 1988 and “started a different life of fun.” She volunteered at Scottish Rite Hospital, which became her most rewarding experience for nearly twenty years. It was like a family. She was one of many dedicated volunteers who filled full-time positions of authority that saved the hospital countless dollars thereby enabling the best free service possible for the children and their families. “One of the biggest thrills was seeing a child I worked with return after many years and throw herself at me for hugs.”
How did she come to live in this neighborhood? She and Ralph were raising their two children in an apartment on this side of town. She couldn’t take it anymore, so her husband told her to go look for a house. A friend told her about this neighborhood so she drove around it one day spying a house for sale by owner. It was owned by a music instructor at SMU who was moving to California. They made a deal and the owner even threw a party to introduce Martha to the neighbors. Later Martha found an orchestral baton the music instructor left behind – souvenir of a good deal.
As Martha’s macular degeneration became worse she had to resign from Scottish Rite after over 5,000 hours of volunteering, but that didn’t stop her from continuing a full life of service. She volunteered at the American Foundation for the Blind and when our Walnut Hill Crime Watch created the Volunteers in Patrol program she became active in that including being its treasurer for three years. She continues in VIP because we are a good “visible presence, a deterrent” patrolling the neighborhood. It’s also “a lot of fun traveling around our area seeing the changes.”
She remembers when Constitution was an open field and Betty Jane Lane stopped at the creek where kids used to play. That nine acre tract, though, was subject to fires. She has great respect for our Home Owners Association for all the efforts it has made to preserve our neighborhood reputation of being “friendly, quiet and convenient.”
All in all Martha feels she “has a good life.” Her daughter and son-in-law live in Houston. Their oldest son just got married after receiving his Masters from Rice. The next oldest daughter graduated from TCU and the youngest son is a Sophomore at TCU. Her son and daughter-in-law live nearby so she gets to see her sixteen year old grandson more often. They’ve had a standing Wednesday ‘date’ since he was six months old. She likes to tell the story of her son’s warning not to spoil her grandson when he’s at her house and her response. She told her son, “The only thing he can do at my house is – no wrong.” We, who are members of VIP, think the same of Martha.
By the way, she wanted to make it clear that this profile was not an obituary.
