Ian Martin

Ian Martin, age 88, died on January 9th in his Toledo home. After moving to America in 1966, he lived on Gracewood for a couple years, until he found the home in which he would spend the rest of his life. First having lived in Canada for several years after immigrating from Scotland. Ian was born on July 24th, 1935, in the parish of Govan in Glasgow, Ian was a sportsman in his formative years before joining the Royal Air Force in 1956. He married his wife Agnes of 64 years in 1959 and would go on to have three children. He worked in shipyards in both Glasgow and Toledo, before becoming a boilermaker for Consumer Power where he eventually retired to a life full of travel and sightseeing with his wife and grandchildren until he could no longer do so.
Putting a life in several paragraphs is futile, as is putting what someone meant to you in just as much space. But here, with what we have, I elect to try and do the latter. Despite all the hard hours of work, the two years spent in the Royal Air Force, the years spent on the football pitch, the legacy of Ian Martin is his family and friends who will live on with thoughts of him. They'll remember him whenever they hear Johnny Cash, whenever they see an oldman sitting outside a retail store reading a paperback, whenever an old black and white western film rolls credits, whenever Glasgow Rangers scores a goal, when your children ask you for advice and you remember what he taught you, when you drive through the mountains, and whenever you think about how you can do better.
Patriarch is the word to describe Ian. Not just in the literal sense, but as someone who understood what it meant to father and nurture, to encourage and support, to give someone a pat on the back when they needed it or a kick up the ass when they needed that more. An enormously generous man who understood the value of his time not to himself, but to others. Ian was frugal, and he spent his hours where they accumulated the most worth: with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, at their baseball practice or soccer practice, at museums two hours away, in movie theaters for films he couldn't possibly have cared to see, all so that they could reap the benefits of this time spent together.
Ian is preceded in death by his parents Alexander and Jeannie, brother Alec, sister Betty and his son Craig. Ian is survived by his wife Agnes, two children Ian and Laurie, three grandchildren Kyle, Alex and Andrew, and six great-grandchildren: Rowan, Cameron, Declan, Craig, Grace and Emma.