Maj. E. N. Martin, M. C. K. The medical profession in Clay County compares favorably with any in the state, the practitioners being not only well qualified in the main, but men of high personal standing. During the seventeen years that Maj. E. N. Martin had practiced medicine in Kansas, he had advanced to the front rank as a careful, skillful nd conscientious practitioner, and his professional judgment is valued in such organizations as the Clay County and the Kansas State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, of all which representative bodies he is a member. The war had brought added responsibilities and he is now chief surgeon in the Medical Corps of the Kansas National Guards, with the rank of major and also chief medical examiner in the U. S. Mustering office for Kansas.
Emanuel N. Martin was born in Lewis County, Missouri, November 7, 1874, but his home had been in Kansas since he was four years old. His parents were Frederick and Catherine (Damerell) Martin, and his paternal grandfather also bore the name of Frederick Martin. The latter was born in 1811, in one of the Rhine Provinces, Germany, and died in 1882, at West Point, in Hancock County, Illinois. He was a man of importance in his village in earlier years, being its burgomaster before coming to America. His son, Frederick Martin, father of Doctor Martin, was born in the same part of Germany, in 1840, and accompanied his parents to the United States in 1852. They located at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at first, but in 1854 the family moved to West Point, Illinois, and there Frederick was later married to Catherine Damerell, who was born in 1843, in Plymouth, England, and died at Coffeeville, Kansas, in 1907. Her parents came to the United States in 1851 and located near Peoria, Illinois. To Frederick and Catherine Martin the following children were born: John C., a farmer residing near Baldwin, Kansas; Charlotte, the wife of O. P. Duncan, who is foreman in a zinc smelter and lives at Iola, Kansas; Frederick P., who lives on a ranch near Jamison, Washington; Mary S., the wife of Jens Kirkeby, who is a ranchman near Balmont, in norther Idaho; Emanuel N.; Maude who is the wife of E. H. Knepp, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church and resided at Waverly, Kansas; Margaret, who is the wife of D. H. Wallingford, and they reside in Mound Valley, Kansas, he being a real estate broker; A. E., a dentist, is a practitioner at Coffeyville, Kansas; and Iva, the wife of Lawrence Fry, who is in the undertaking and furniture business at Olathe, Kansas.
The father of the above family was a wagonmaker by trade. When the Civil war came on, Mr. Martin enlisted for service in 1861 and continued in the western division of the Union Army until December, 1864, being a member of the Seventh Missouri Cavalry. He took part in a number of important battles, including Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, in the latter being wounded. For a few years following the close of the war he lived in Illinois and then moved to Canton, Missouri, where, in partnership with his brother Jacob Martin, a wagonmaking business was founded, Frederick doing the wood work and Jacob the iron work on the vehicles they constructed. In 1878 Mr. Martin came to Crawford County, Kansas, and resided on a farm until 1891, when he retired to Baldwin, and died there in 1894. He was a republican in politics and he and wife belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church. As may be inferred, they were quiet, industrious people, upright in character and exemplary in conduct.
Emanuel N. Martin attended the country schools in the neighborhood of Walnut, Kansas, and later entered Baker University, at Baldwin, from which institution he was graduated in 1897. He taught school for one year and then took a post graduate course in the Kansas Normal School for his A. B. degree, which he received in 1898, and in that year taught again in Crawford County. Mr. Martin had a definite end in view in further pursuing his education, having determined to enter the medical profession. In 1890 he became a student in the University Medical College in Kansas City, Missouri, and was graduated in 1900 with his medical degree. He located at Edgerton, Kansas, and continued in practice there for four years and in 1905 entered into practice at Benedict, Kansas, where he remained until 1908, when he came to Clay Center. He had a large and substantial practice in this city and is coroner of Clay County. Major Martin is one of the student type physicians, being never entirely satisfied with his acquirements, etxensive as they may be, while there are new discoveries to be investigated and new methods to learn. Hence he had taken post graduate courses in different well known institutions, in 1904 in the West Side Hospital Post Graduate Medical School, Chicago, Illinois, and in 1915 in the Illinois Post Graduate Medical College, also in Chicago.
Major Martin was married in 1901, at Independence, Kansas, to Miss Nellie Stafford, who is a daughter of Rev. G. W. and Sarah B. (Coleman) Stafford, the latter of whom resided with Doctor and Mrs. Martin. The father of Mrs. Martin at the time of her marriage was pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Independence, but is now deceased. Doctor and Mrs. Martin have three children: Lucille, who was born January 10, 1903; William Hoyt, who was born August 14, 1907; and Marjorie Franc, who was born January 22, 1917.
Major Martin is a Knight Templar Mason, belonging to Coronado Commandery, No. 20, Knights Templar; Clay Center Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; and Clay Center Lodge No. 134, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He is identified also with Clay Center Camp No. 408, Modern Woodmen of America, and with Clay Center Council, Knights and Ladies of Security. He takes an enlightened citizen’s interest in civic affairs, especially concerning the public schools and is a present member of the school board. His political views lead him to vote with the republican party. Within his home and fraternities, his profession and church he finds himself too busy to join many of the social bodies founded entirely for recreation, although as a physician, he advocates a reasonable amount of out-door exercise and no doubt often prescribes it. He belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is one of the trustees and in which he teaches the Underwood Bible Class in the Sunday school.