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Transcript of Living History
Jack Martin: [00:00:00] Today I think we have a really interesting guest for you today. We have got somebody has Royal led an interesting successful wife and managed to bring himself out of a situation where he grew up in. poverty and managed to raise a family. And we had a successful career. and he is also an author of a book as well called Butler County Memories. by Elmo Lincoln Martin. So I'm going to also tell the audience that this interesting person is also my grandfather. So if you hear me referring to him as grandpa. That's why, so grandpa, can you tell me how you got the name by the way of Elmo?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I can tell you that you got the name Elmo Lincoln and the year 1920, my father was going to college in bowling green. And my mother was pregnant was me about eight [00:01:00] months and he took her down to the movies. Well, the movie was a Tarzan movie and of course my mom had never seen anything like a movie before.
So she's well, so taken with Elmo Lincoln when I was born about a month later, she tagged me with that name, but it's been a pretty good name. Helped me a lot in life.
Jack Martin: Yeah. It's definitely A unique name. You are 101 now. right So you've seen a lot of things in your life and that's one of the reasons that I definitely wanted to have you on the show. So you grew poor and a lot of people say they didn't know they were poor. Did you know you were poor?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I thought everybody lived the same as we did. We lived on a farm down at Butler county that my grandmother gave to my mother when she got married. And I grew up on that farm.
That's Butler. county Kentucky. [00:02:00]
Butler county, Kentucky.
Yeah
Jack Martin: So the home that you grew up in had no electricity,
Elmo Lincoln Martin: no plumbing, no running water no electricity There were four of us kids and we'd keep the windows broken out most of the time. So got a lot of fresh air.
Jack Martin: Well, I think I remember you telling me too, that in the winter time you would wake up and the water that you would have around the house would be frozen. So it literally would get down to freezing temperatures. at night.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: oh, it did. Yeah. Matter of fact, we had a pot belly stove that burned coal,
Jack Martin: Right.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: but the coal heat burned it out. So it wasn't usable anymore.
Jack Martin: So it like burned out the side of the, the metal on the
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah.
So when my dad had a friend that was a pretty good mechanic and he'd take it fit, taking a 50 gallon drum [00:03:00] and made a stove, a heating stove out of it.
So my dad had him make one for us. take a 50 gallon, cut a hole one for the smoke stack, use a plug for air in the bottom, cut a door for the wood to go in and we'll we used yeah.
Jack Martin: So in the summertime, did it get really hot there in the summertime. or not,
Elmo Lincoln Martin: you have very hot days in Kentucky. Yeah. Very hot yeah. I might tell you about the first inside plumbing
I ever
Jack Martin: Tell that one
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I was working for one of the wealthy guys in Morgantown. One of them was about 17 and he had a big farm down on green river and his mother lived down there and he hired me to go down and help his mother with the cattle and all that stuff, you know, and [00:04:00] he'd take me down in his car and I'd across the river and to help the help his mother.
Well, this one particular today, he got busy and he couldn't take me. And said he had a nice big motel or hotel. Well, it's rooms up business, down and rooms up. He says, go over and take one of my rooms for the night. We'll take you over. We'll take you down there tomorrow. Okay. So I got up in the room and what do you know? It had plumbing, it had a toilet
Jack Martin: and you had never really seen that before.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: first toilet I'd ever seen. It seems so strange doing your, that kind of work and a house, Yeah, yeah, yeah Plumbing first time. 17. Yeah.
Jack Martin: Yeah.
So, I mean, you've seen a lot of changes [00:05:00] in your
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I've lived in a great time, great time, been life, you know?
Jack Martin: So I think you've told me you had a what did you call it? An Overland vehicle?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: My dad did buy a 25 model
Jack Martin: okay
Elmo Lincoln Martin: car.
Jack Martin: Okay.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: And my dad raised some chickens. There was a garage, a building near, but the chicken took the garage, a building away. So the car had to set out under the big Sycamore tree, and it was a little car, had a convertible top at 1925 and that wore out early soon and the water and, and the season matter of fact, he lost one of his neighbors. Aside fell off the car, the neighbor fell in the mud. Yeah.
Jack Martin: Didn't you tell me you and your brother were working on the vehicle at one point too And somebody some [00:06:00] little incident happened there.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, we could take the key and turn it on and it would move the car backwards and forth. Yeah. So we were playing with that for a while. And my brother, he was probably 12 or so at that time, he says, I want to see if I can set down here and, and see if I can hold a wheel. So you, you do the drive and you put it in, draw the shift and forward and turn the key on, and I'll try to hold the wheel. Well, I've, I forgot to put it in drive and. And that's it reverse. And when I turned it off, the car backed right up on his stomach, skinned him up a bit, but we didn't, we didn't dare tell parents we fooled with it. So he had to suffer getting his skin put back together by
Jack Martin: So no, [00:07:00] no injuries to them other than
just kind of getting skinned up Cause I'm pretty sure that it must have been a much lighter vehicle that today's cars.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: You wouldn't know. It will have one of those. Yeah.
Jack Martin: But it wasn't very reliable either. Was it like, even when you, even aside from the fact that that top was all gone
Elmo Lincoln Martin: The motor was about the size of a shoe box. Yeah.
Jack Martin: right.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: And, and the reason the neighbor fell out of the car, because the passenger side. The door and so forth that fell off. And the reason it fell off was had a steel frame and a two by four screwed to the steel frame. And then the body part of the car was nailed to the tuba for yeah. Yeah. And when the rain and everything got there, that's what the two before [00:08:00] rotted and galls us caused it to
Jack Martin: So this car was built from the factory with a, with a wooden frame a two by four frame.
on it
Elmo Lincoln Martin: the way it was
Jack Martin: Wow
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah
Jack Martin: A little bit different than the way they build them today.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, it's kind of strange. Leave it set out. He might've known that spoil the ups, whole story and everything. It was two passenger car and my dad and my mom would ride in there with my two sisters who were smaller. And when we went somewhere, my brother-in-law had ride on the running board. Yeah. And it would go 35 miles an hour down the hill. I remember my dad's doing that, asking my mother how she likes all that
speed
Jack Martin: I know, but it's crazy to think too that, you know, nowadays, we don't even [00:09:00] want people to drive without seatbelts and you kids were just hanging onto the side of the car,
Elmo Lincoln Martin: well, you could only use it in the summer months cuz the roads were impossible. Muddy. You couldn't use it in the winter months, you know, you know,
Jack Martin: so what, what did your parents do? What were, what were they like? What did they do for work?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: What, my parents, my dad was a school teacher to start with, you know, after he got through college here. In fact, I was as one of his students, my first two years, but then he decided he didn't motor teach school, I guess. So he just started working on the farm, raising chickens and that kind of stuff.
Jack Martin: And what was your mom doing?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: A mom. Just a housekeeper.
Jack Martin: And you had one brother and two sisters and they all lived there at the
house with
you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: lived in the house. Yeah.
Jack Martin: And what was that like?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, the house had one [00:10:00] big bedroom, a hall in the middle and the kitchen part. They were probably 12 by twelves and size and the halls wide enough for a bed And then the kitchen was another 12 by 12. Yeah. And have to cut wood and build a far and to do a cook, anything, you know, it pretty primitive type of life.
Jack Martin: And so, , you are living in a fairly primitive home. What was the. town like? Did you have neighbors right there?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, they were 12 families living on the road when I was there. And 50% of them made moonshine and the other 50% just farmed and raised everything they needed that way. Yeah.
Jack Martin: So did you ever wind up in the moonshine business yourself?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, some of my [00:11:00] papers that I've written my story, they said I was in the moonshine business and I was kind of angry about that. Cause I didn't tell him I was in the moonshine business. Yeah. First thought I never did, but one time our neighbor needed a couple 10 gallon kegs of whiskey carried up on the hill because it was muddy. He couldn't get a car down there, asked my dad if he could hire my brother. And I took care of the kegs up and we did, we carried them up there for him and he gave us 50 cents a piece for doing that. And then after I thought about that a bit, maybe the paper was right. Maybe I was in the moonshine business. I got 50 cents out of it at one time
Jack Martin: 50 cents. Was that pretty good for the time
Elmo Lincoln Martin: have to work all day for 50 cents
Jack Martin: Yeah
Elmo Lincoln Martin: if you had to work on the farm or [00:12:00] somebody hired you 50 cents.
Jack Martin: right So when did you meet grandma?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I met Ruth I went up to Michigan to visit my sister yeah. She was pretty much an orphan didn't have much of anybody to do help her parents at all passed away.
. Where did you meet?.
I'm trying to think of the name of the little town. Fairly close to grand rapids. Yeah. Yeah.
We lived together for 63 years and had the four kids, Sharon, Susie, Jimmy, and Richard. All of them are alive. Except James. He got killed in an automobile accident
Yeah Right. So, , you met grandma and then what kind of happened after that? And I do want the audience to understand I [00:13:00] want to touch on grandpa's history because it really informs the book So the book Butler County Memories is can kind of describe it grandpa, but it really touches upon a lot of the past, that you grew up in. , it started off when you were in your, what, late eighties writing a series of articles for the newspaper, correct?
I did. I wrote a hundred and some articles for the Morgantown Banner. And from all those stories, that's where the book came from. You know, I put the stories all on a book and publish it. Yeah.
So it's Butler county memories is a collection of those short stories. Which a lot of it is, , informed by what things were like growing up for you as a kid.
Well, my family was pretty close knit family, and family took good care of us. Well, under the circumstances, it was a good family, And we would work on the farm when I was young. I [00:14:00] helped my dad with the garden. Chickens, all that thing. Then I like to go to school. I went to my dad who was teachers I've mentioned for my first two years,
Jack Martin: How many kids were in the school,
Elmo Lincoln Martin: 35 or so most of the time. Yeah
Jack Martin: Did you have any students that you liked more than others? Any favorites?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, as has a boy about 12 or so, I was desperately in love with a little girl when I'm Pauline. Yeah But I like to go to school and if I'd done something wrong and they want to punish me, they'd say, well, you got to stay at home today. Cut wood. And you won't get to go to school today.
Jack Martin: So, where you punished and have to cut wood? Very often?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Not very, not very matter of fact, I was pretty easy kid My parents always told me, stayed out of trouble.
Jack Martin: yeah. So what ha what happened after you you met grandma and then? What happened after that?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, [00:15:00] we settled in Louisville for a while and I got a job in a factory and the war was going on. I at that time
Jack Martin: so what year are we talking about?
Right
Elmo Lincoln Martin: 1942. And I worked in this machine shop and then when when they drafted me into the army I went down to camp. Van Dorn down in Mississippi for training Ruth. kinda. Followed me all along while I was doing that.
Jack Martin: They had some quarters Where she could stay on base.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: No we would rent a place for her yeah,
Jack Martin: Okay Were any of the kids born at that point?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Sharon then over to camp maxi, Texas, for more training. 1944. We shipped out to Europe.
Jack Martin: And when you went over to Europe, where did you head?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: We landed in Scotland, stayed here a day or two moved on down to England. Proper took few days took the boat to France. [00:16:00] It was after D-Day but we took the boat over a couple of days. We were up on the front line.
Jack Martin: So How are you feeling about the whole thing about being drafted and going over there?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, I'd like to help my country. I thought it was necessary, you know? So we relieved the Ninth division along the Siegfried line up there between Belgium and Germany.
Jack Martin: And what was your unit?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: 99th and infantry division
it was a new division scattered out along the front line, cause wasn't much going on in there. But then the Battle of the Bulge came and we were there and our right in the middle of it, we were going to have breakfast one morning because we've been on the line frontline for a month.
They rotate the regiments to upfront one in reserve. We were all reserved. Kind of a break [00:17:00] and chow wagon was there and we were going to have breakfast we were in a little. Old train station. , we call it Buchholz station.
And our first Sergeant He was up there and upstairs and he saw somebody coming down the railroad track and he thought it was part of L company. It was going to share breakfast with us. It got a little closer, turned up to be a German. And that was the first shot. He far killed a lot German. And then the fog started to lift and the Germans were all over the place there.
When you're surrounded, life is a different sort of thing. You know,
Jack Martin: right?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: you don't know. What to do, your commanders were confused and we kept coming back. It's trying to get out out of the surrounding conditions. Matter of fact, that first [00:18:00] day the battle started, we lost 32 of our men and that battle but we stopped the Germans from doing what they wanted to do. They wanted to be down into France right away, he had cut off our supplies and all that stuff. Yeah. But my division. Done a great job at holding them back for two days. That's what killed their effort to be successful. They couldn't move anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Jack Martin: And, I know that you told a story occasionally about a kid in a woodpile. I think you were trying to hide from some like a machine gun or something. right?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, that, that was on the first day after the battle started, you didn't have time to organize. You just grabbed your gun and run out and see who you can shoot, you know? Well, there was a log pile there not too far from the building. So myself and two other [00:19:00] guys, not, not part of my squad all three of us laid down behind the log pile and I thought when the fog game up, all these Germans were ganged up, up there and the opening and we were pouring the bullets to them.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, they didn't like that. So they turned the machine gun on the log pile and we were using our weapons and my guy right next door on my right side, says I was staff Sergeant. He's a Sergeant, my legs shot up.
I could smell the burn of the clothing, where the bullet had done that. But I looked over at him. His leg was fine, but nothing wrong with his leg. He was feeling back in his pocket and he pulled out his spoon mess spoon, and the bullet had hit the belly or the spoon put a crease in it and it slapped him in the butt and he [00:20:00] thought his leg was gone, but he was okay.
Jack Martin: See, That's one of those that's one of those stories that you think only occurs in the movies. right?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, yeah,
that's right Well The German didn't get out of the log ball with a machine gun. So they turned the mortars on us. Mortars is a tube thing. That project say a PR project, a tile that explodes. So generally they can only have two zeroes and then they don't usually hit their target with the first round of that weapon. So they, they bracket, they change it. Usually it went over first, the second shot, first shots, second, maybe short, but that's the way they zero in the log ball and being busy as we were. And I was a Sergeant. I probably should have known that it was going to happen, but didn't cross my [00:21:00] mind. Part of my group was in the woods over there about 30 yards away. And they hollered run Sergeant Martin run. So I took their word for it and ran for the woods. But he still tried to kill us up machine gun, kicking up the snow and mud as we went. But we got over there in time to look back and watch the log pile blew.
Jack Martin: blow up.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: yeah
Jack Martin: Yeah. You were lucky on that one.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: charmed life I've led, lived through things like
Jack Martin: Yes Yes But you'd mentioned to me something about a kid in a woodpile and you didn't have the heart to kill him. Cause he was so young
Elmo Lincoln Martin: There was a young little kid when I first got to the wood pile like it was about
17
I think they had sent him as a scout to see what was down there. And he got it. He got scared and crawled under the log ball, but I couldn't shoot him. It looked too much like kids, but [00:22:00] I'm sure the mortar killed him.
Jack Martin: Yeah You didn't really talk much about the war or anything after you came back
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well most people don't, who's been in those situations watched, they kind of tried to put it away out of their mind. I still try to live it. Let's try to live forward from that.
Jack Martin: Right So you, you talked about it a little bit more, I think, as you got older, a bit older or was it just that you felt it was something you wanted to talk about a little more
Elmo Lincoln Martin: as I got a little older, everybody said I could write a book about it, but I don't want to go into all the detail. No. So kind of scholarly the story of my war
Jack Martin: So you wind up getting frostbite. And so is that what got you sent back, was the frostbite,
Elmo Lincoln Martin: yeah, yeah. trench foot. They called it. Happened to a lot of us guys. You can't get dry temperature, as I mentioned, very cold. So nothing to do, but [00:23:00] freeze well, yeah. Frostbite got me. To protect myself from artillery. I had dive under a bridge Had water in it. And I got raw clothes, all wet, but by then we were all aware. They surrounded with the Germans, no place to change temperature 10 above zero, you know? So I was lucky that , my Lieutenant says you better get back here before, your feet freeze totally off and you lose them. So I got back and that way. Yeah.
Jack Martin: So you didn't get to go back though right away.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I was on the front line about two months. About two months. Yeah. Well, once I found out my feet was freezing and my skin was freezing and other places to, to yeah. Then I, they took me back to the hospital yeah, R back in France, you got me on an ambulance and we went back into [00:24:00] parish Paris started working on me to try to save my feet and in the hospital,
Well, other little thing about being safe from serious injury and so forth or one of the, maybe the second or third day after the bulge, we keep having to be pushed back and we had moved back a ways and started digging Fox holes. We just about got them all finished whenever, but when the captain says. Just grab everything. Don't grab anything heavy, just your clothes and run backwards. You know? And, and w we were doing that. My platoon Sergeant was running right in front of me. And what the shells breaking a light. You could see, you know, exploding shells all around. He says, let's go this way to the [00:25:00] left. For some reason, I didn't do that. I didn't go to the left. I turned to the right, as some other people had turned to the right, someone with them left my staff Sergeant that went to the left. He got captured. We went went back. And we found a unit of a think, the second division that was going back and we joined with them . And got, back out. Yeah. You're not supposed to divide your Sergeant, but it was good thing I did.
Yeah
Jack Martin: you don't even know why you did it?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: no, don't have the faintest, maybe, maybe instinct says that's where the Germans are. I could see their tanks over there. Or if there was a left, you know earlier in the day, but this was at night, but I knew they were over that way, but I don't really remember saying, I've got to go this way. He goes, they're there. But for some reason I went that way. Yeah.
Jack Martin: How do you know your staff Sergeant got captured? [00:26:00]
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Oh, it was,
Jack Martin: It's part of the records
Elmo Lincoln Martin: yeah
Jack Martin: the, of the battle.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah. We knew. Yeah. People knew that he was captured, , his friends. Yeah.
Jack Martin: Didn't you tell me at one point that you would actually slept through some shelling I think you told me you woke up and the tops of the trees had all been blown off.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: When I went to the right, we got back to Elsenbourne Ridge. And that would become , a major line of defense Elson born rich did. So we got a foxhole dug. I hadn't had any sleep for three days and night woke up one morning and officers are looking all around my area for duds, from artillery shells and stuff. And he said to me, the sure portal moan last night. Didn't they? And I never did even hear that.
Jack Martin: Amazing. Right.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I didn't know that done a big [00:27:00] artillery barrage on us. Yeah.
Jack Martin: Wow
Elmo Lincoln Martin: when that happens
Jack Martin: Yeah
That's for sure. So after you came back from the war I, you told me at one point. that, you know, you never want it to be cold like that again, but you somehow wound up moving up to Michigan. So why did you, when you got back to the United States, why didn't you go up to Michigan?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I don't think I'm repeating, but when I got back from the war, my hometown here at Bowling Green Morgantown, there was only two jobs available making moonshine or digging coal. So I didn't want to do either one of those. So put the family on the train and went to Michigan, got a job in a factory that made automobile trim,
Jack Martin: What company was that
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Dolor Dolar Jarvis.
Jack Martin: How did you find out about the job?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I guess, one of the big factories there in Grand Rapids
Jack Martin: but I think you'd Actually you [00:28:00] decided to move up to Michigan and you didn't even have a job waiting for
Elmo Lincoln Martin: oh, didn't even know anybody there. No
Jack Martin: Did that feel like a risk to you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well what I'd been through, wasn't difficult at all. , You get hardened to taking chances. Yeah, it was a nice company and I worked for them 20 years. When I started, I started working in the plant, working on. And what we call the buffing department, pour, we polished the stuff so we could plate it and make it Chrome plated nickel, copper Chrome. And every once in a while the personnel manager would stop and talk to me and he would say, don't you want to come and join the management?
I said, no, I'm okay here. I don't want to do that. So I was elected to chief steward of the union. big, big job. Yeah. I said, no, I'm happy. I'm happy here. But for [00:29:00] some reason, I don't think I was tough enough on management. So they voted me out of the job. Next time he came by and said, we want to join the company. I said, yeah, I'll do that. So I joined management and then got into the sales part of it, selling their parks.
Jack Martin: Did you, did you know that you would be good at sales? What made you even want to consider going into? sales?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, I think the company thought I'd be good in sale. That's why they gave me the job to go down to Detroit and talk to the buyer or stone, their engineers down there. Yeah. And I was pretty successful at it. Yeah
So
Jack Martin: what do you think made you successful at it?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I knew my product. So that's why I've sold so much, I guess. Yeah.
Jack Martin: I remember you telling me at one point that sales was pretty easy. You just sit and have a conversation with somebody, right.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah. [00:30:00]
Jack Martin: That's kinda, that's kind of what I, what I kind of took from it was that was sort of your magic was that you were relaxed about it and you were just having a conversation about it and you, you knew your product really well, too, because I know that you could tell me about how the parts were made at your other businesses. you know, like when you were working for rapid purge, you could tell all about how the plastic extrusion process was done
Elmo Lincoln Martin: well, rapid Purge came in after I left Dolor and set up my own business called manufacturing agent. I knew all the people in the automobile business general electric. I, dealt with all of those. So I quit Dolor and started my manufacturing business. And I had 13 companies that I sold for, you know, plastics, stampings, [00:31:00] all of those things that automobile people need, and it was very successful for me.
Jack Martin: But that must have been hard to make a decision. to
Elmo Lincoln Martin: was difficult.
Jack Martin: . So you left door and you started your own manufacturing rep. so how long did you do that for?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, I was still doing it when I was 80 years old. Rapid purge was one of the last ones I had.
Jack Martin: And so, tell them what rapid purge
Elmo Lincoln Martin: all Rapid Purge who made a produc that cleaned plastic machines, plastic machines make a plastic part, run it through this machine. It melts it and then runs it into the mold, comes out what you want. And those machines causes charred material. And it'll ruin the product, have that charred material in there.
Jack Martin: stick to the inside of the mold
Elmo Lincoln Martin: One is molded. You could see it in the park. Yeah. And a rapid Burgess [00:32:00] produc. You run that through there when you want to trend colors or you're having the chart burn material run that through there and it would clean it out. Yeah. And then you could run your parks without having any burned condition out of them. Colored mixed colors from the other run. You need to clean that out to.
Jack Martin: right. That was a very successful product for you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: We got along good. Just one of the 13. As I got a little older, I finally settled down not, to do too many, and gradually the 13, most of them went away and the good one I had left was rapid Rapid Purge I had a couple of other ones that may be bolts and nuts or something that wernt't very profitable for me. I had around 300 customers I could call on. And sometimes I never got in because they'd say, well, we have our own method of keeping our machine clean and we don't need you. like [00:33:00] every other product Or like every other business it had competitions, other people made a product to try to do that too, Rapid Purge was a chemical type. Others had friction scrubbers to try to clean him out. So he had to overcome those . It was a better product than the competition. Yeah.
Jack Martin: So you thought it was a better product and you would actually demonstrate it
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I I would go in sometimes and help them watch them, tell them how to do it, you know? Yeah.
Jack Martin: And that's what I was getting at earlier about how one of the ways that you were successful in sales is that you really knew your product well
Elmo Lincoln Martin: My education and the automobile and that business that helped me a great deal. Yeah. Because I'd been through it all with Doehler before now.
Jack Martin: so were doing that all the way up through your eighties
you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah
Jack Martin: That kind of is leading us up to when you started writing So how did you go from [00:34:00] doing the rapid purge to deciding to start writing articles for the newspaper
Elmo Lincoln Martin: My family always wanted me to tell them my stories in life, you know, and they said, I know you'd tell us about it, but write it down for us So we can read it. So I've started writing their stories down. That's in the book and a paper heard about it, Morgantown paper. As a weekly paper and they've run my story.
Jack Martin: how did they hear about it
Elmo Lincoln Martin: lot of people were still remembered me and somebody must've told him about it, you know? Yeah. So they me
Jack Martin: now you were living in a you were living in Knoxville at that time
right but you were you started writing the articles for Butler county's paper correct
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah. Pretty soon I had a folder about the sick of stories
Jack Martin: Right right About a what is that an inch thick or something of the stories, but [00:35:00] did you know, when you started writing that it was going to become such a big thing for you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: didn't have the faintest idea once everybody's seen them in the paper, the family, they says you got to get them in a book. Good stories. Some of the stories. People would email me and tell me how good people were. They didn't agree all the time on which one was good, one of the stores in the book is called The Mystic Winds some people never heard of it, but the way I processed it and everything about it, more people thought that was the best store I'd ever written.
Jack Martin: When I've read your stories I've always been so impressed with the talent level as a writer when you write you're not writing just about facts you tell it in a unique and interesting way
Elmo Lincoln Martin: That's why they understand it. They say, you know, they tell me, well, you tell it makes me think I was there.
Jack Martin: [00:36:00] the series of articles that you started writing they were mostly about the way you view life and about what your childhood was
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah. Little childhood life.
Yeah yeah
Jack Martin: of wisdom in there as
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah
Jack Martin: So you always had a way of looking at things a little differently than other people right So how did you wind up going from writing the articles and deciding to put them into a book
Elmo Lincoln Martin: My family push me Lina Deedee. Kids and grandkids and friends.
Jack Martin: And so as far as the book he went through Amazon to get it published Correct
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, it was an Amazon. Subsidiary company. That done the of it. Yeah.
Jack Martin: And that's where people can get your book
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Go to the computer and say Butler County Memories, or Amazon books, Butler County Memories and you get a whole story about it.
Jack Martin: I think your book is available as a downloadable book like an electronic book as well Was it
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Oh, they [00:37:00] do that. Yes.
Jack Martin: so what have you done As far as sales You've also gone about selling the book at local places as well
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Barnes and noble, they don't handle it there, but they'll buy it for you, and I put it in some of the stores. Antique stores seem to be a pretty good place.
Jack Martin: So you wound up moving from Tennessee back here to where we're doing this interview today here in the Morgantown Butler county area people know you in the area and if you do book signings lots of people show up when you started writing the articles did you ever imagine it would become like that where you would become so well known
Elmo Lincoln Martin: never given a thought? I don't think the average person who writes a book like I did their sales usually turn out to be about 50 books.
Jack Martin: right you've told me that you are also working on a another book Can you tell me about the book that you've got coming up as well
Elmo Lincoln Martin: The new book is [00:38:00] titled , Kentucky: The Sweet and Bitter Land. It touches almost a lot of things about the history of the country growing up in Kentucky, I've seen the good and bad parts of it, and my new book is going to explain a lot of things that people hadn't heard about yet about Kentucky, some of it's sweet, some of it's bitter, and that's what the book is going to be about probably be published around that's fall.
Jack Martin: Okay So the fall of 2022
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Lots of things that I know about, and there was of course, history of some wars and all the things that happened to the settlers that came through the Cumberland gap daniel Boone. Now Daniel wouldn't have first got to settle in Kentucky, . But a fellow by the name of Dr. Thomas Walker. Was way ahead of Daniel Boone coming to kentucky and he's the one that named [00:39:00] Cumberland gap, Cumberland lake. He named those all because he was an English man thought I might explain it as whole people could understand it better. And like they say, they understand my writing different from other people,
Jack Martin: Yes
I want to just ask you kind of some general philosophical questions right now. So, you managed to, to bring yourself out of poverty and have this really successful. life. are there some secrets to your success that you can pass on to people, some words of wisdom that made you successful?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, I guess the first thing you kind of have to keep the door open for some kind of an opportunity, I think that was the thing that got me going . I am not chinchy, but I only spend my money on things that have value, and save the money. Interest has helped me a lot to get ahead, cause I'd saved my money and put in the bank, you pay interest on it.
Jack Martin: [00:40:00] During your career? was there some secret to staying motivated?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I always said that drive if it had a dollar in it, I'd find a way of getting it,
Jack Martin: and
where do you think that came from?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Probably the way I was raised. I didn't want to go through. What the people that raised me and the country was doing how many poor people children have to go barefoot and all that stuff, I didn't want to follow that to look for something bigger, better
Jack Martin: some people who grew up that way stayed that way.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: The whole, the majority of them, the journey of Gale, I refused to do that. I says, I'm going to make something my life that's worth while I didn't know it was going to get this big. But as I'll at least have a nice house and a nice car and that kind of Yeah. Maybe that maybe The guy that I worked for his mother, his name was girlish Smith.
He w he came up [00:41:00] poor, just like me used to walk 10 miles to do something. There was an article in the book about him and walked 10 miles back to make a dollar got so help. Everybody got some bunch of money up, everybody in Morgantown. fine, man And he and I were pretty good friends. I says, well, if girly get into it, how come I can't do that too?
Jack Martin: Well, that's great to have somebody like that as well. And I'm know that you've been a mentor to a lot of your family as well., how many kids and grandkids do you have at this point grandpa
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, three kids alive. And what do we got in grandkids? Five. And then I got some great grandkids as well. Yeah, they're all great people. I love them all.
Jack Martin: You've gone from a life where you were living in a very poor house, very poor conditions to, at some point in your life, you were able to buy your home and write a check [00:42:00] for work it and so a wire to that was, , working hard and saving your money. And grandma helped you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: I was I was going to mention that my Ruth was a real helper.
Jack Martin: You know, one of the things that, I always noticed too, was the great relationship that you and grandma. had. So can you offer some wisdom about, what it takes to have a really strong marriage?
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Well, the love about it is the greatest thing, I guess. And of course, I think you generate love by living together and trying to make a life together. Now, my Ruth, she helped me a lot, but like anybody else, she making mistakes, you know? Well, my philosophy was don't condemn her for making a mistake, tell her, it was partly my fault. I should have told you about it. And she'd say you shouldn't have to do [00:43:00] that. And how knitted things like that hold you together? Yeah. Yeah. It was love unconditional
Jack Martin: and I think both of you said to me at one point that , you always tried to meet each other more than halfway.
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Oh yeah.
Jack Martin: One of the things I noticed about you grandpa too, and your relationship was that you doted on grandma, you, you had the approach that you wanted to spoil. grandma as much as you
Elmo Lincoln Martin: Yeah I did her. course. She didn't have any family. Sharon was her first child and the love that was the love. Those kids is unbelievable. You should take care of them .
Jack Martin: You guys had a great marriage and I know we all, we all miss grandma terribly
So grandpa, thanks so much for taking the time today. For the audience, if you want to get his current book, it's called Butler County Memories. by Elmo Lincoln, Martin. You can find that on Amazon, and his book that will be coming out in [00:44:00] the fall is Kentucky, the Sweet and Bitter Land end. And that'll be out in the fall of 2022.