![\"Lois](\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2016\/01\/15-10-15-Lois-Martin-26-658x439.jpg\")
Lois M. Martin ’62 on her family farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a photo of her mother Esther Metzler Martin.<\/p><\/div>\n
Born and raised on a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, farm, Lois M. Martin \u201862 <\/strong>has always loved the agricultural life. \u201cIt was hard for me to leave,\u201d Martin says about enrolling in Eastern Men\u00adnonite College in 1959.<\/p>\n However, her mother, Esther Metzler Martin, stressed that living into one\u2019s potential was a facet of giving to the com\u00admunity. Martin\u2019s mother set early examples of charity, taking flowers to nursing homes and filling school supply kits for Mennonite Central Committee.<\/p>\n Esther encouraged her daughter to \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad beyond high school. Lois Martin taught classes at a one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County to pay for col\u00adlege. When she visited home, she always found a handwrit\u00adten note from her mother on her dresser quoting Luke 12:48: \u201cTo whom much is given, much is required.\u201d<\/p>\n After earning her degree in elementary education, Martin moved to the Washington D.C. area and continued teaching.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I wanted to live somewhere that the Washington Post <\/em>would be delivered to my door every day,\u201d says Martin. At this time, rates of substance abuse and drug-related crimes were on the rise. Martin saw the effects on her students \u2013 many of whom had older siblings and parents incarcerated or dying as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was always the children who suffered with little or no understanding of what was happening,\u201d says Martin. These experiences motivated her to pursue a master\u2019s degree in counseling from the University of Maryland.<\/p>\n Martin\u2019s counseling career in the Prince George\u2019s County, Maryland, public school district spanned more than two decades. \u201cI would like to believe we made a difference,\u201d says Martin. \u201cI loved my work and will forever miss those children.\u201d<\/p>\n After retiring from her counseling profession, Martin returned to the family farm, which her grandparents had purchased in 1912. She came back to a property surrounded by housing developments. The Martin family strongly supports keeping the farm intact and productive: \u201cWe feel what\u2019s happened to the land is immoral,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Working the farm includes the cooperative efforts of Martin, her sister, and her nephew and his family \u2013 garden\u00ading, herding sheep, tending her \u201cMr. Lincoln\u201d rose bushes, and selling seasonal crops such as pumpkins and Christmas trees. In the coming months, Martin can be found in the 200-year-old springhouse, mulling cider for customers.<\/p>\n The notes from her mother have \u201cbecome a sacred mantra throughout my life,\u201d says Martin. She manifests this mantra by donating to MCC relief, Church of the Saviour, Joseph\u2019s House (a Washington D.C. nursing and support organization for homeless people with AIDS or terminal cancer), and her church, Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster. In 2010, she established the Esther Metzler Martin Endowed Scholarship at EMU in honor of her mother.<\/p>\n \u201cWherever she is, she\u2019s probably pleased,\u201d says Martin. Receiving letters from beneficiaries of the scholarship and seeing the work of Center for Justice and Peacebuilding students and graduates affirms Martin\u2019s investment in the university. \u201cThe people there have a real commitment to the kinds of beliefs I have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00ad Born and raised on a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, farm, Lois M. Martin \u201862 has always loved the agricultural life. \u201cIt was hard for me to leave,\u201d Martin says about enrolling in Eastern Men\u00adnonite College in 1959. However, her mother, Esther Metzler Martin, stressed that living into one\u2019s potential was a facet of giving to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":3170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[674,6],"tags":[649,720,688],"class_list":["post-3074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-winter-2015-16","category-magazine","tag-education","tag-elementary-education","tag-lois-martin","issues-fall-winter-2015-16"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3074"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3174,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions\/3174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}