Nana of the week-Mary Dee Carter
Mary Dee Martin was born in February 1919. She was the youngest child, and only daughter, of Lizzie (Weaver) and Clarence Martin. At the age of 3, her mother died of a heart attack leaving Clarence with 5 kids to raise on a farm. There are stories that her dad would take her and the boys to the field with him as he worked, placing her on a quilt under a tree to sit while he and the boys worked the fields all day.
At age 8, her father remarried and proceeded to father nine more children by his second wife, Mae (Turner) Martin…lovingly referred to as “Mammie”. Mary Dee, as a young girl growing up, lived with other families in and around the Roseville community often helping take care of their children in exchange for a place to live and call home. (it is with grateful acknowledgment to one of these families for the earliest picture of Mary Dee at age 8, which is the only known picture to exist of her as a child).
Around the age of 15, she went to a local baseball game where she would remark to her friend, “That man is going to be my husband” (pointing to the catcher on the baseball team, Bernice Witty). At 19 (1938) she would indeed marry Bernice and move to the Oleoak community of Barren County where they lived with his mother, Beulah Bailey Witty. Mary Dee worked at the Kentucky Pants Factory until 1949.
In 1949, at the age of 30, she became a mother to her one and only daughter, Paulette. Four months later, she and Bernice became superintendents of the “County Farm” (Hillcrest Home…on Roseville Road). Over the course of the next 20 years, they saw to the well-being of many older citizens of Barren County, who otherwise had no homes or families to support them (this was before the days of medicare/medicaid and social security). The “county farm” was also temporary home on many occasions to runaways from other areas until they could be reclaimed by their families, and juvenile delinquents, who because of their age, could not be housed in the county jail; and sadly, on other occasions the Hillcrest Home also became temporary shelter for children who were being removed from their parents’ homes to later be placed for adoption. This latter group were the hardest for her due to their ages (some mere babies, sometimes entire families of children–6 or more; these kids were often brought upstairs into her family’s living quarters and cared for until social workers could place them elsewhere). Bernice died of a heart attack in 1969, and Mary Dee and her daughter moved to Glasgow. She remarried in 1975, but would lose that husband in 2001 to Alzheimer’s Disease.
In 1970, she started her employment with Park Avenue Pharmacy/Hatchett Home Medical where she remains employed, now only part-time, to this day. Always a believer in “working hard and earning your pay”, she sees no reason to retire…even at age 90 1/2 years “young” (please, don’t call her “old”).
Mary Dee became grandmother in 1971 to David Woodcock and in 1975 to Scott Woodcock. David, in turn, would give her three great-grandsons: Andy, Austin and Aiden. Scott would give her three great-granddaughters: Stacie, Madi, and Kennedy.
One has to laugh at the fact that she was in her late 80s when she got her FIRST “speeding” ticket…and rode a 4-wheeler (driven by her youngest brother) for the first time. Two years ago on Christmas morning, her doctor (Karen Small) called her and said, “Let’s take a ride.” That ride consisted of an aerial tour of Barren County…and one of her most prized Christmas gifts. She has often said she would love to “fly to work” (which is less than a one-fourth mile trip by car). In February 2009, her family and friends helped to celebrate her 90th birthday with an open-house held at her church, Bethel United Methodist Church, with some 100+ people in attendance.
