Joan Drummond Martin

Joan Drummond Martin was born on December 30th,1936 at home in Oak Cliff, Dallas to her parents Franklin Earl Drummond and Leota Levina Markham Drummond. She was the youngest of the siblings coming along 8+ years after the last child and after 2 miscarriages in between.

Her name was to be Jo An and when they got the Birth Certificate back from Dallas County, she was named Joan and that is the first of the many names that she had throughout life.

Joan was raised in Oak Cliff and attended Pieler Junior High , just down the street, where she met her future husband, Gene and then on to Adamson High School. She was an excellent student and involved in all sorts of extra activities in her school years. Her annuals show many of the clubs she belonged to and extra activities that she so loved. As a young girl, if missing from home, she was normally found somewhere on the street sitting on a front porch swing visiting with the neighbors and checking on them.

Joan was not raised in a Christian home, but a friend in her early school years invited her to go to The Christian Church in Oak Cliff. She walked 13 blocks by herself for many years every Sunday and other times when the church was opened. It was not very long until she accepted Christ in her heart and became the first in her family to do so. As the youngest, both parents and siblings watched her convert to Christianity and each and every one of them followed suit and were saved also. God used her as a young girl to touch the lives of her family, and others who had served in WW2.

Gene and Joan eloped with the help of his older brother, Wayne, while in High School. They went to Durant, OK and were married on April 25th,1954 and were married 53 ½ years. They did not tell their parents for several days until Gene’s mother, Nona, got suspicious and questioned Wayne. The truth came out and Gene had to go and tell Earl and Leota that he had married their baby. Not long afterwards, Gene had joined the Marine Corps and left for Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Once settled there, Joan went out to live with him on base in an extremely small travel trailer. They had to take the mattress outside in order to have a table to eat on. And so, marriage began for them in California. Once deployed to Korea, Joan returned to Dallas to wait out his time of deployment. Lots of letters were written to the family from Korea and they would gather at Nona’s home to read them and pass around the photos. The photos were considered racy for the time period and Marines bathing and wearing nothing were often in the photos. One such occurrence happened when Nona was reading the letter to the group, but went ahead and passed the photos to the ladies to pass around. Oops, Gene standing totally nude in one photo gave every lady there a big laugh.

Gene came home to Dallas at Christmas of 1956 and on Christmas Eve, Kerry was conceived on the one night he was home for the Holiday and born in September 1957.

Eighteen months later, Kathy came along in March of 1959 and thus, the small family was formed and on its way.

In 1961, the family built a new home and moved to Bedford to begin a new life. Gene had been working at Bell Helicopter in Hurst since 1957 and wanted to be closer to work. Joan had worked at Republic National Bank in Downtown Dallas during those years and learned banking. Once in Bedford, she left banking and raised Kerry and Kathy. In 1968, she went back to banking and was employed at Irving Bank and Trust. Through the banking acquisitions and mergers, her career continued on through Texas Commerce Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, and J P Morgan Chase until September 1995. She achieved the status of VP of Collections and Exchanges and worked at Quorum, Brookhollow, DT Dallas, and finished at Las Colinas.

Upon retirement, she immediately took responsibility for her mother, Leota as her dad, Earl passed in September when she retired. Her mother passed in February 1996 and she was officially retired from all work at that point.

Throughout all of those years she was a loving daughter, sister, mother, wife, grandmother and great grandmother. Back to the names that we all knew her by during her lifetime and I am sure that there are many more.

Many of you will recognize many of them and may have used them yourselves. She was Joan, Jo An, Jody, Joanny, Honey, Sis, Sweetheart, Baby, Mother, Mutti, Mee Maw, and the one I really like is, best friend, that so many used.

Joan was the last in her family to be promoted to Heaven and is now there with so many family and friends that have passed before. There is a great celebration going on there now with them all back together again, parents, siblings, tons of cousins, and a boatload of lifelong friends and acquaintances that she met and witnessed to on the way. I know her voice mail on the land line at home always ended with “God Loves You” and her voice saying it will be sorely missed.

Joan was proceeded to heaven by parents Earl and Leota, Mother-in-Law, Nona Martin, Husband Gene Martin, Sister Dorothy Armstrong, and Brother, Frank Drummond and Brother in Law, Wayne Martin.

She is survived by Kerry and Wife Cindy Martin (son), Kathy and Danny Neill (daughter), Grand Children Jeff Crook and Wife Cacee, Melissa Collins and Husband Jim, Tiffany Martin, Kathryn and Husband Nick Davis, Russell Neill and Husband Joey Cavanaugh.

Great Grandchildren, Joshua Collins, Rylee Crook, Danyelle Collins, Sarah Davis, and Corey Collins.

Joan was a blessing in so many lives and never missed an opportunity to tell you that “I love you”. Gene always asked, “has anybody told you that they love you today, well God does!” Both of them together showed love to everyone and taught us all about Jesus and His importance in our lives. They showed love through good and bad times and always looked above for strength to get through it. She personally prayed for everyone on this list and wanted the best for everyone she knew, from the early days at the Christian Church to the final days when she was asking about the status of family members that she was praying for. Thank you for all of the wonderful years of memories and showing the world what Christian love is to others.

Thank you Mutti for every second of your love.

A visitation for Joan will be held on Thursday, July 10th from 5-7 p.m. at Bluebonnet Hills Funeral Home 5725 Colleyville Blvd. Colleyville, TX 76034. Her funeral will be held Friday, July 11th, at 10 a.m. at Central Baptist of Bedford 1120 Central Dr. Bedford, Texas 76022. She will be laid to rest, later in the day, at Bluebonnet Hills Funeral Home and Memorial Park.

Memorial contributions can be made to Central Baptist of Bedford, P.O. Box 321 Bedford, TX 76095.