Leadership Through Love
Chapter 1
A Gift For His Purposes
Growing up in
Cedar Falls,
Iowa, in the northeast corner of the
Hawkeye State,
was a destiny that I am most grateful for. This was a good town to continue my
youth, after the first three farm years in Minnesota. Those days of course I remember little, if anything, of that Midwest state time.
Childhood home on Main Street in Cedar Falls, IA
While being raised by Dad and Mom Martin, along
with the seven other kids in the family, back on 1116 Main Street, it didn’t seem
like anything out of the ordinary to do my part of the kitchen duties,
household chores, and to obey when told to “do it now or forget watching TV
tonight” orders. That was the way I knew the typical life to be in the late
‘50’s and early ‘60’s.
Louis & Lila Martin family photo (1962)
Cedar Falls, IA.
This very training, as a young boy, along with the sense
that the Lord was putting something special in my life, as a gift, I believed was
to prepare me for what would come later down the road. I thought that destiny was to be a Catholic missionary
priest to Africa. Forty years later though, it
had resulted in more than twenty years of Christian ministry, not as the
typical minister, but as an “add-ministry”, or better known to many, an administrator.
Being the second child in the family, the first son of
three, mixed among five daughters, gave me many opportunities to learn some
basic instructions in life, which then was used to bring growth to this gift
the Lord had placed within me.
1972 family photo
As what I knew to be “normal” in large families at that
time, I was called upon to take my turn in the nightly kitchen supper cleanup,
as my sisters Sue and Mary and I rotated the regular chores after the dinner
hour. For so it was always somehow written, on the wall calendar every day of
the month, each of our names, listing who was to pick up the table and sweep
the floor, who was to wash the dishes, and who was to dry and put away the cleaned
pots, pans, silverware, cups, plates, and whatever else was used in service
that night. Never mind about these “kitchen duties” being the work of the
females – do it or forget about getting my weekly allowance of $0.50.
And so from the third grade until the eighth grade, I
diligently labored in the Martin household kitchen, after we had eaten our
family meal together. It was generally around 5 pm, on the dot, that we all sat
down to eat. Dad would get home from his first job at 4:30 pm, from the local
Viking Pump Foundry, and then, right after supper, was off to his “2nd
job”. This personal business was called Martin Electrical Services, his own proprietorship
of wiring houses and other electrical service jobs for the people of Cedar
Falls, Iowa. Feeding this family of ten took more than the regular 40 hour job,
even with the additional ten hours of overtime each week he was allowed to do
at Viking.
Viking Pump Foundry - Cedar Falls, IA
Early in my high school years I would earn some extra cash
helping him, but after a while pulling on the white and black wires through the
plaster and slat walls, and climbing around blown-in insulation above ceilings,
wasn’t my idea of the “good life”.
In between the kitchen chores and the electrical
apprenticeship, I was able to secure the Waterloo Courier newspaper route, just
a few bike blocks from our house to the trailer court. I started with less than
30 trailers to deliver to, but after a few contests put on by the newspaper
print company, once earning myself a portable cassette player (a big deal to me
in 1968!) and other items too expensive to purchase on my own, the route grew
to 62 Sunday deliveries, along with the daily delivery increase. Getting the afternoon
paper to their door before they got home from work, and then making the
collections on the weekends or after school for payment, kept me on the move.
Tracking down the bi-weekly collections, sometimes meaning
two to three trips biking on my Schwinn bike, totally equipped with baskets
over the rear wheel, to those “delinquent” customers to see if they were home,
not only increased my leg power for the three years of middle school football
and track teams, but it also increased the persistence necessary to make sure I
got my money the people owed me. If I didn’t, so went my profit. When people
moved out on me, and owed for a month or more, my appreciation for those who
paid on time and didn’t allow their debt to grow became a strong motivator to
have that attribute in my own life. As for the debtors, hopefully they repented
of their wayward ways, and never did it to the next guy.
I also did my turn at Rolinger’s Restaurant, as one of the
male waiters in the all-male employees local food establishment. Being able to give
the cooks, the older boys typically in the high school senior class, a good,
readable chicken and fries order, was very important. Or delivering the
customer order having the cheeseburger basket, along with the orange shake, which
was the hope of the owner to make him rich and famous. It didn’t.
Russ Rolinger, co-owner with his father Lou, the ex-boxer,
seemed to always complain that McDonald’s stole his “Hi-Boy” idea and just
re-named it the Big Mac. All in all, I grew in knowledge about further getting
things done on time. “Hot food first” was the daily command from both Russ and
Lou.
After a few years at this after-school and weekend job, I
too became a veteran, and was able to start training the younger ones, who were just
turning thirteen years of age, and freshmen in high school. The gift of management
within was being groomed for the long haul.
When the $1.10 hourly rate in the restaurant business didn’t
quite make the extra spending money that I wanted, or felt that I really
needed, my job search took me to the Eagle grocery store in my senior year of
high school. I had to quit the Columbus High School Sailors football team that
I was on though, the very week before we were to play my home town team of
Cedar Falls High School. But because I was at the Catholic high across town in
Waterloo, I didn’t know any of the Tiger football players anyway, so the new
job took higher priority. Sitting on the bench, my number 88 stuck between
numbers 87 and 89 among the others who didn’t play much, helped convince me
that football wasn’t the way I was going anyway.
1972 family photo
Sports had been good to me, especially baseball. In my
junior year, in 1972, our spring baseball team made it to the state finals, losing 1-0
to the eventual champs from Mason City. It had been a good year – I set the team
school record in triples and walks, playing center field most of the time.
During a game my senior year, I played every position, after asking my coach
Duke Dutkowski to let me have a shot at it.
1972 Columbus High School Sailors Baseball lineup
Waterloo, IA
State Championship Contending Team
1973 Columbus High Sailors of Waterloo, IA.
Coached by Duke Dutkowski (top right corner)
When graduation finally arrived in the spring of 1973, after
being at the grocery store for less than a year, the night stock manager of the
Eagles store asked me if I was interested in taking over the crew. He had seen
“something in me” that both he and the general store manager, Phil Bailey, liked.
I guess I pulled the pallets out in good order each night, and stocked a pretty
good grocery aisle that caught their attention. Or maybe it was the “singing
along with the night time radio DJ as loud as I could” energy, when things
seemed a bit too quiet, that appealed to their observations. (But I doubt that.
To this day, I tend to sing louder than most!)
Not wanting to live like a screech owl, coming out only at
night, I graciously, but thankfully, declined the offer, and went instead a
year later to work at the local Sartori Hospital in Cedar Falls as a daytime
custodian. Scrubbing the scum away from the hallway floor baseboards and the
cigarette-smoke buildup on the patients rooms ceiling grid lasted less than a
year, but building diligence and character, no matter what the job entailed,
would prove beneficial as the future positions opened before me. And it was a
neat time hanging with the University of Northern Iowa football player, the
team’s star running back, my co-worker, during his off-season.
Along the way there were those I watched and learned from.
Everyone needs another one or two to show them the ropes. Usually it was the
big brother of a friend, since I didn’t have a big brother of my own. Or the
guy who had six months more experience doing what I was being trained to do at
the time. Whatever the case, it seemed like a good thing to watch and see how a
task was accomplished, and then try to find a quicker way of doing it myself. Time
has always been a top priority to me. (The clocks around my home, office, and
recreational garage will attest to that!) A step here or there would cut down
on the physical load, and make the task get completed quicker than when others
would do the same thing.
Since I always had the feeling that another was watching me,
as was most often the case at home with my seven siblings, I always felt I needed
to set a good example. And then I wouldn’t have to confess the sin of “setting
a bad example” in the weekly confessional. This sense of responsibility started
at a young age, and has been with me ever since.
When I was in the eight grade, I was given the opportunity
to schedule the altar boys for the weekday, special events and Sunday Masses. I
suppose Father Purtell saw that I paid attention in his catechism class, and
thus asked me if I would do the task. It didn’t take too long to do a two-month
schedule for each of the five Sunday Masses, but when it came time to do the
funerals, which couldn’t be “booked” until the week before the event, not
knowing when those were coming, proved a bit tougher. When I couldn’t find two
sixth, seventh or eighth grade boys to serve Mass, I usually ended up doing it
myself. (Not a good way to learn delegating!)
But as all things seemed to even out, when it came time to schedule
the altar boys for the weddings, I most certainly scheduled myself as often as
I could. For it just so happened that most of the bridegrooms, being happy as
they were on their special occasion, would generally slip me a five dollar bill
before departing in their decorated wedding car. And the Lord blessed me with
many weddings at St. Patrick’s Church!
Making the best of the way things were, by doing that which
I was being taught to do, continued to add to the natural and spiritual
character being built within. Though always smaller in stature than my
classmates around me, the Lord was using the natural training and instruction
to build a “bigger” stature, which those on the outside didn’t always see.
He was preparing me for His greater purposes for the road
ahead.
Steve Martin
Louis & Lila Martin
My parents! (1992?)
Louis & Lila Martin family
(I think 1973)
Dad & Mom (2000)
Camping was our vacation time.
In Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota...
Late 1960's
...loved those s'mores!
Mom made the look-a-like dresses for my sisters.
Four at the time. (1968?)
As the expansion began...
1977
