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About Martha Christine Thompson
memorial to her at find a grave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=TH&GSpartial=...
Brooklyn birth cert number 15207
The following biography of Martha Munson Thompson was written on the occasion of her retirement as church organist at Lake Madison Lutheran Church. She had served in this capacity for 44 years.
Biography of Martha Thompson
Martha Christene was born to Christian and Mathilda Munson on October 15, 1894 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a carpenter and worked in a sawmill but received a call from the Lord and decided to enter the ministry and when Martha was seven years of age her father became a Lutheran Pastor in a mission church in New York City. Martha had one sister Anna and two brothers, Lewis and Christian. Sadness entered the home when Martha was nine years of age. Her mother had a nervous breakdown and had to enter a sanitorium at Kings Park, New York and was a patient there for twenty years before her death in 1922. A housekeeper was employed to take care of the Munson children and the home. Her name was Nina Thompson, a native of Norway.
Martha spent her girlhood days in Brooklyn, and at the age of 16, her father was called to a mission church at Faith, SD. Having heard of the easy way of homesteading land there, he packed his belongings and he and the family started for the West.
Life on the prairie was entirely different than a city life in which she had been accustomed. Their home was a two room tar paper shack, miles away from any neighbors. The closest place to get their mail was seven miles away at Faith, and many times Martha and her sister walked both ways to get their mail.
Their food was limited and many meals consisted of milk mush and dried bacon.
It was out on this desolate prairie that Martha met her future husband, Herman Thompson who had come from Lake County to prove up land there They did some courting there, mostly by walking back and forth together from church and their neighbhors, some of whom were Mr. and Mrs. Haldor Norby and baby Signa, the Stephenson sisters and Herman's brother Thomas Thompson, wife Carrie and children.
After living in the West for two years, Martha's father was called to Norway, Iowa to be pastor there, so he and his family moved there.
Martha and Herman's courtship blossomed into engagement and eventual marriage on February 18, 1914, and she and her husband moved back to Lake County in South Dakota and resided on a farm.
... Martha and Herman were members of Lake Madison Lutheran Church. Herman had been a member there all his life and he and his wife and daughters were regular worshippers there.
Martha in her childhood days learned to play the piano and playing hymns was her pride and joy. Often when the regular organists were not in church, the Pastor looked down into the congregation and would say. "Mrs. Thompson, will you come up and play?" So she did. Her husband's father, Carl Thompson stood by the organ and directed the hymn-singing as was the custom those days.
It was about the year 1919 when Martha was asked to be full-time organist and consented to do so and has been since, except for two years when she was telephone operator in Nunda.
During the first years of her playing, services were held only every other Sunday and most of them were in the Norwegian language.
Transportation to church wasn't as simple and convenient as it is today. It was the job of hitching up the team of horses to the top buggy or to the bobsled, and to the young bride who had lived her first sixteen years of life in New York City, this mode of travel was a new and great experience. Martha quickly adapted herself to life on the prairie.
For many years, Martha played a hand-pumped reed organ for church services. It seemed to be only hymn-singing then, as at that time there wasn't any choir and special music was not used. The choir was organized in 1933 and Martha was accompanist.
In 1930, Martha again became mother to a new baby daughter and in December, 1934 her eldest daughter was married to Mr. Kermit Graff. They have five sons and one daughter. Five years later, her second daughter was married to Clayton Graff (brother to Kermit) and are the parents of two sons and two daughters.
In 1942 the Thompsons left the farm and moved to the town of Rutland. They continued their work in the church, Martha as organist and Herman as janitor. They were both interested in the music of the church. Herman also sang in the choir.
In October, 1950 Herman suffered a stroke and died two weeks later at the age of 62. Martha continued to make her home in Rutland and played the organ in the church at the morning worship each Sunday, and in doing so, it has been a joy and feeling of satisfaction for this pioneer organist of forty-four years.
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The above was written by her daughter, Myrt in loving remembrance in 1964. The following was written by her granddaughter Jeanie
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Martha, or "Grandma T" as we affectionately called her, told us stories of how strict their housekeeper, Nina, was to the Munson children. The 14 mile round trip walk each week to pick-up the mail was especially frightening for the 14 and 12 year old sisters. They saw and heard coyotes near-by and were especially frightened one night when a horse and rider approached them on the road. They hid as best they could.
Nina also insisted that on Sundays, the children spend all day reading the Bible.
Several years after Martha's mother died in New York, her father married Nina. Pastor Munson and Nina served parishes in Norway,Iowa, Arlington,SD, Sisseton, SD, and Minneapolis, MN. They retired in Minneapolis where Nina died in 1942 and Christian in 1944.
Grandma T passed away on May 18, 1976 at the age of 82.
My mother Bev, has told me a few of her memories that she has of her ancestors and her life as a young girl (these are posted on Beverly's page).
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Martha Christine Thompson's Timeline
| 1894 |
October 15, 1894
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New York, Kings, New York, United States
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| 1915 |
February 15, 1915
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| 1917 |
May 6, 1917
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Lake, South Dakota, United States
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| 1976 |
May 18, 1976
Age 81
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Lake County, South Dakota, United States
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