THE OTHER WAY

High Standard Of Grace

Daughter remembers legacy of ‘Pa’

It’ll be three years ago in September when my beloved father-in-law rose up from his sick bed and, oxygen tank in tow, went to Pioneer Day in St.

Paul.

Harold Wayne Martin - “Pa” to me for nearly three decades - had one last mission to complete before he gave in to the cancer he’d been fighting. He had to go sign copies of “Pettigrew, Arkansas: Hardwood Capital of the World,” the book he’d written between diagnosis and hospice.

Pa (and Granny) set an extremely high bar for grace under the world’s worst circumstances. It turned out I’d need the lesson, but of course, I didn’t know that yet.

All I knew was how much I loved my dad and how important it was to him for the story of Pettigrew to be told. That was nothing new;

I’d known that from the moment I married into the Martin clan.

I’m a week late for Father’s Day, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. Me being late is nothing new either.

But as I promised Pa before he passed away on Sept. 29, 2010, I want to continue to share not only his memories of Pettigrew’s past but mine, too.

I remember Pa’s grandmother, Helen Mooney Barker, a character if there ever was one, and the sale in 1986 that dispersed the contents of the Mooney-Barker Drugstore, a time capsule of the community’s history since 1916. The collection the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History acquired then made Pettigrew the best-documentedlittle town in Arkansas.

I remember his mother - Elva Barker Martin, known for some strange reason as “Bob” - playing piano,growing beautiful flowers and ornery cats and canning everything from a vast garden, even though the pantry was always full.

I remember his sweet and gentle dad, H.O. Martin, who had polio as a child but worked just as hard any other man in the woods of Madison County and had a heartas big as those hills.

As soon as Larry came into my life, I handed him a copy of Pa’s book. Blood aside, I explained to him, I am a Martin through and through. This was my dad, and Pettigrew is my home.

The first time we drove down the largely vacant section of Arkansas 16 called Pettigrew, I asked Larry to try to see what Pa always saw - the time at the turn of the 20th century when this tiny town was the terminus of a railroad line that carried hundreds of loads of hardwood out of the Madison County hills. I told him how the streets had bustled with people, coming and going from hotels, stores and livery stables, the gristmill, the bank and even a silent movie theater. I told him about Pa’s great-grandparents, his grandparents and his parents, all of whom played significant roles in the community.

Larry saw for himself the pictures of Pa wading into a herd of cattle with his first grandchild, the Little Queen, to show them to her (or her to them. I’ve never really been sure which). He saw in those photos the ear-to-ear grins when Pa and Amanda returned from one of their regular four-wheeler rides.

He saw the pride in Pa’s face when Amanda graduated from preschool and the love in Amanda’s face when she climbed into the recliner with Pa for story time - right up until she was too big and he was too fragile.

I don’t know that Larry fell in love with Pettigrew.

But he fell in love with my daughter, and he set out to fill Pa’s shoes as “Papa.” He couldn’t have done a better job.

There’s a quote in Pa’s book about returning from a brief sojourn in California when he and Granny were a young couple with a baby.

Like so many people, they’d gone west hoping to find success, but Pa said a country boy had no business - and could find no joy - in the city. Coming over Whitmore Mountain, he said, was coming home.

I can only imagine how beautiful the hills of Madison County are in heaven, and I know there’s a lakefront cabin somewhere where my Pa and my husband, who passed away May 9 of last year, are having a lovely time getting acquainted, swapping tall tales and catching the biggest fish ever.

Back here, I’ll keep my promise. Pa, I remember.

Thank you for being the best dad I could ever have had.

Becca Martin-Brown is an award-winning columnist and Features editor for NWA Media. This column first appeared in 2012.

Northwest Profile, Pages 40 on 06/23/2013

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