19 September 1841 – 18 February 1928
Hattie was born in Ohio but met and married her husband Samuel Klump Martin — a successful lumber executive — in Wisconsin. Two years after their marriage, they moved to Chicago where their five children were born: Elmer, Wilton, Marion, Samuel, and Walter.
In 1896, Samuel passed away. His obituary painted him as a kind and honorable figure in a sea of sharks.
The 1900 census shows Hattie living with three of her five adult children. Those three would all marry and move away over the next few years, but Hattie also had many social and charitable responsibilities that kept her active.
Wilton married Kate Queal Dixon in 1895 in a lavish society wedding; eight years later, Marion, married Kate’s brother George Dixon in an equally lavish wedding.
Though he was not the oldest, it appears that Wilton ran the family lumber business after his father’s death in 1896 until his own retirement.
Wilton and Kate had only one child together, a daughter, and later in life, Kate acted as director of the Presbyterian Hospital and Crippled [sic] Children’s Home in Chicago.
The family were very wealthy and the Martin children also married wealth. Census after census lists the various family members living with servants at upscale addresses around the country.
After she was widowed in 1896, Hattie never remarried and lived out her remaining 32 years in luxury with several live-in servants and several of her children and grandchildren nearby.
Hattie and Samuel are buried at Graceland, their grave marked by this beautiful monument. Of their five children, only Wilton and his wife Kate are buried with them. The others are all at different cemeteries in Chicago and Los Angeles.
RIP Hattie