Martin Phillip Ayers

Martin Philip Ayers, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and devotee of Christ, died on Sunday, February 15, 2026, at his home in Simpsonville, SC, with his wife and best friend Lavada at his side. Martin served in the United States Army, stationed in Korea, and after his service was a long-term employee of Michelin North America.

Martin’s 43-year career with Michelin North America took place at its primary research facility in the US, MARC. His work began with road testing tires and evolved into a technical position from which he retired on the same day as Lavada, also a longtime Michelin employee.

Though he enjoyed his work at Michelin, his involvement with the church was such that to those close to him, it often seemed his “day” job. For years—“going back as far as I can remember,” said Jeff Payne, the pastor of Holland Park Church—Martin served as a benevolence deacon, often receiving calls from people in crisis who had no one but the church to turn to, and would in the evening go to meet these people, to provide a night in a hotel room, or groceries, or to pay an electric bill, or buy a meal. In addition to posing the risk inherent in meeting a desperate stranger alone, this work took him in to rough neighborhoods, where he was sometimes told by others he would not be safe, and, undeterred by fear, he at night approached many a stranger’s door, carrying out his work in the same matter-of-fact way he did all the things he believed in.

“I don’t feel guilt, he told his children once over lunch at a Cracker Barrell, responding amusedly to a family member’s expressing their experience of the feeling.

“Like a psychopath?” Joked his daughter, and he laughed and explained that he simply acted out of a sense of right and wrong, that he did what he did because it was logical to him. “If I do something for someone, it’s just because I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

When not at work for Michelin or the church, Martin helped his children with their homework, sometimes for hours, and for many successive summers used his technical skills to build them some new piece of outdoor play equipment: a tire swing, a treehouse, a sandbox. He played with them after full work days, and even when money was tight surprised them with toys or tickets to events that would excite them. At one point in his life, he worked a second job so that Lavada could stay home with them a while longer.

He loved understanding how things worked, knew how to fix most things, and even in the last months of his life, you could find the table in his workshop covered in parts—the evidence of some repair work in progress.

After his children grew up, he experienced an idyllic retirement with Lavada, at the modern farmhouse-style home they built on three acres of land in the country, where Martin loved to sit for hours in the morning, just being and experiencing nature with a cup of coffee. “He loved spending time with his grandchildren,” Lavada said, often attending basketball and soccer games, swim meets and concerts, and the only game he missed was on the day before he died. “He loved gardening and traveling, working in his shop and collecting coins and antiques,” she said. In that shop, at his desk, one can see photos of Lavada at various destination points of Route 66—Santa Monica; Chicago Illinois; Oatman, Arizona—and their placement and number, as well as the feeling they evoke, give the impression of a man just returned from his honeymoon rather than one who’s lived with his wife for over 52 years.

After learning he had cancer and would soon not be able to work outside as he had, his children offered ideas for entertainment like podcasts and Legos, and Martin, looking amused, replied that unlike most people he didn’t need to do anything. “I enjoy just being,” he explained, and shrugged, and though this state is one pursued by mystics and monks and those seeking enlightenment, he expressed it with no sense of pride or achievement, seeming to wish only to reassure his children he would not be bored.

A placard on the desk in his study reads jokingly, “I don’t get nearly enough credit for the things I manage not to say out loud,” but resonates with the truth that he said only what he thought needed to be said, and was a mysterious person, so practical and common-sensical on the surface that you rarely thought into the spiritual aspect of his intelligent silences. Except to reference some antique—“I once had one of those,” he’d say—he never spoke of his childhood to his own children, and through it he probably developed his bravery, his unfailing reliability, and exceptional compassion.

When facing the knowledge that his time on earth would soon come to an end, had a proposed number of months to live even, he accepted it with uncommon grace. “I’d like to get to spend more time living and being with my family, but it’s God’s will, whatever happens,” he said—until the end a dad lovingly and reassuringly explaining the situation to his children. Martin wished that he would get to travel more with Lavada, have more talks with his grandson Jonas, see his new grandson Leeland become legally an Ayers, chase a storm with his son Jason, see his daughter April meet the right man, and spend some time by the ocean with the whole family, including his beloved daughter-in-law, Terra.

Life doesn’t work out like you plan, he frequently conveyed to his children, “but what God has planned for you is better for you and more interesting. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem that way at the time.”

Martin is survived by his wife, Lavada Ayers; his daughter April Ayers Lawson, his son Jason Ayers (and daughter-in-law Terra Ayers); his grandsons Jonas and Leeland Ayers, his brother Tim Ayers (and sister-in-law Becky Ayers); and the lives he helped quietly sustain. His memorial will be this Saturday, February 21st, at Holland Park Church, 1131 Holland Rd, Simpsonville, SC 29681 at 1:00 pm.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to any of the following causes that were dear to his heart:

*Southeastern Childrens Home  
https://sech.org/
115 Childrens Way, Duncan, SC 29334

*The Haiti Fund  
paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2169675
The Haiti Fund, 161 Landmark Dr., Taylors, SC 29687

*Christian Learning Centers  
https://www.clcofgreenville.org/give
Christian Learning Centers of Greenville County •• PO Box 26824 Greenville, SC 29615