Alice W Martin

Alice Wallace Martin, a life-long Texan who worked as an accountant until her 91st birthday in September, died on April 15. She was the only woman in her accounting class at the University of Texas where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1948. That same year, she married Edwin K. (“Lefty”) Martin, who was working as a UT Dean at the time. They were married for 48 years until his death in 1992.

Alice took her first job with Earl F. Walborg and Company in 1950 and left two years later to begin raising a family. Sixteen years and two daughters later, she returned to her former employer, now called Walborg, Lockett, Paul and Company. After surviving at least five mergers, she retired after 31 years with KPMG as their oldest accountant in the US and Canada. Without pause, she began her association with Ray D. Freeman, P.C., with whom she worked until 2015.

The only daughter of Cled E. Wallace, Sr., a Church of Christ Minister who died in 1962, Alice was the longest lived of her family. Her mother, Ola McCall Wallace, tragically died in a car accident in 1954 soon after losing three of her four sons. Alice’s eldest brother, Dow, died in 1952. Her brothers John (d. 1944) and Henry (d. 1953) were posthumously decorated heroes of war who died in their twenties. Cled E. Wallace, Jr., her beloved remaining brother, died in 1994.

Alice and Lefty’s two daughters, Gayle Martin and Mayola Martin, are both concert pianists and graduates of The Juilliard School in New York City. Alice, a classical music lover, was proud and always very supportive of their talent and accomplishments. (Both Mayola and Gayle will always be deeply grateful to her.) Alice’s stubborn strength, keen sense of wit, and absolute commitment to family, friends and work, was greatly admired. A fiercely loyal friend who loved one-on-one conversations, she has been claimed as a “surrogate mother and grandmother” by many. In her final decade of life, she continued to work, entertain her friends and neighbors, and care for her numerous adored bulldogs and assorted other breeds, even though she became partially blind and dependent on oxygen and a walker. She made friends with her doctors whom she appreciated and openly defied.

In recent years, Alice wrote thousands of short poetic observations she modestly called “ditties.” Her last, shakily written days before she died, was this: “Friends are so wonderful; I can’t hold back the tears; They try to help me; All through the years.”

Alice Wallace Martin is survived by her remaining English Bulldog, Bertha, and her two daughters, Mayola Martin and Gayle Martin, who reside in Bellaire.

Visitation will be held Saturday, April 23, 2016 from 1:00 – 2:00 PM with a funeral service beginning promptly at 2:00 PM. Interment will immediately follow. Afterword family and friends are invited to continue the Celebration of Life in Holland Hall. All services will be held at Forest Park Lawndale.

Arrangements under the direction of Forest Park Lawndale Funeral Home, Houston, TX.