Frank Hayden Martin, M. D. Now practicing medicine and surgery at Lorraine, Ellsworth County, Doctor Martin is widely known to the profession in Kansas, especially through his associations in earlier years with the staff of instruction of the Medical College at Topeka. Few physicians of the state have utilized to a greater degree abundant opportunities for advancement in the science of medicine and surgery.
Doctor Martin is of old New England colonial stock. He was born at Gray in the State of Maine March 24, 1852. The Martins came out of England and settled in Massachusetts in colonial times. Doctor Martin’s great-grandfather, Edward Martin, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The grandfather, Irving W. Martin, who was born in the vicinity of Randolph, Vermont, served in the War of 1812, was a music teacher, also followed a mechanical trade and died at Mill Village, Vermont, before Doctor Martin was born. He married Sibyl Frances, a native of England.
Edward I. Martin, father of Doctor Martin, was born at Randolph, Vermont, in 1828. He grew up at Warren, Massachusetts, and also lived at Springfield in Boston and died at Warren, Massachusetts. For a brief season he was a sailor before the mast, but his real career was as a singing master and he taught music in all the different localities of his residence. He was quite successful, and at one time invested in two sections of land in Northwest Missouri near Cameron, but sold this before his death. He was a republican and active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, helping the church work especially in the choir. He married at Lowell, Massachusetts, Ann Russell Black. She was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1842 and died at Springfield in 1912. Her ancestry went back to the titled English nobility, she being a great-granddaughter of Earl Russell, of Boston, England. Edward I. Martin and wife had a large family of ten children: George Edward, a music teacher living at Boston; Doctor Martin, the second in age; Walter I., who is a public official and an apple dealer at Chester, New Hampshire; William Freeman, who took up the trade of machinist and died in Texas at the age of forty-five; Leslie A., a daughter, is the wife of Charles Sturat, a banker at Franklin, Massachusetts; Jennie Louise married Frank Harvey, a stone mason and contractor at Springfield, Massachusetts; Willard E. is an electrical engineer at Gloucester, Massachusetts; Mary Jeneva married Edward Doolittle, foreman in the railroad yards at Springfield, Massachusetts; Agnes Ethel, now deceased, was the wife of a moulder who lives at Providence, Rhode Island; Flora Alma lives at Westchester, Connecticut, wife of the superintendent of the state asylum.
Doctor Martin was well educated in the schools of Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts, and spent four years in the Academy at Craftsbury, Vermont. In early life he learned the trade of gunsmith, and followed it at Springfield, Massachusetts, until 1870. Early in life his talents were manifested in the direction of natural history and this soon brought him employment which had much to do with his future career. For a time he was employed in doing anatomical work in the museum at Harvard University. While there he took medical lectures.
Doctor Martin came to Kansas in 1876, locating at Topeka, and he finally took the full course of instruction in the Kansas Medical College, from which he was graduated M. D. in the spring of 1896. He remained with that institution as professor of operative surgery until 1905. Doctor Martin had kept in close touch with the leaders of the profession, had attended many post-graduate schools and particularly the old Massachusetts General Hospital at Boston. In these institutions he specialized in surgery.
On leaving Topeka in 1905 Doctor Martin practiced at Iola, Kansas, until 1913 and then moved to Lorraine, where he is the only physician and surgeon in the town.
In 1898 Doctor Martin was appointed surgeon general of the state under General Leady, and during the Spanish-American war he went as hospital stewart with the Twenty-second Kansas Infantry. Ten days later he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and assistant surgeon and was in active service at Camp Alger in Virginia, and Camp Meade, Pennsylvania, until mustered out November 3, 1898.
Doctor Martin is a former member and president of the Allen County Medical Society and had active affiliations with the State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is a republican in politics and is widely known in fraternal organizations. He is affiliated with Topeka Lodge No. 225, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Iola Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, the Valley of Fort Scott Consistory of the Scottish Rite, with Iola Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, became identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen in Topeka and for the past twenty-five years had had his affiliations with Iola Lodge, is a former member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and at one time was a representative in the Grand Lodge, joined Camp No. 2800 of the Modern Woodmen of America in Topeka, and is now a member of Ellsworth Camp, and belongs to the Royal Neighbors of America. Doctor Martin is president of the Commercial Club of Lorraine, and is an active factor in the business and civic advancement of that community.
In 1880, at Topeka, Doctor Martin married Miss Sarah Catherine Haynes, who died in that city in 1903. By this marriage Doctor Martin had two children, Frank Haynes, an expert accountant living at Los Angeles, California; and Vera Corrinne, wife of Dr. Walter M. Sykes, a physician and surgeon at Ramona, Oklahoma. In 1905, at Kansas City, Missouri, Doctor Martin married Mrs. Minnie L. (Leister) Sondegard. Her father, Capt. William B. Leister, was a member of the Twenty-Second Kansas Regiment in the Spanish-American war.