Person:Martin Sites (1)

[Stamps-Sites_TFS.FTW]

 Just as Grant County had received settlers from Europe and from the colonial regions to the East, she gave up some of her sons and daughters to settle in other regions. Martin L. Sites was one of those who moved on.
 Martin Luther Sites, youngest of six children of Abraham A. and Susanna Sites, was born at Masonville in a log house by the Sites Mill along Spring Run on March 26, 1879. He attended the Elkhorn School and St. Matthews Lutheran Church.
 In 1899, as a young man of 20 years, he went to Hickory (Catawba County), North Carolina, to attend Lenoir College (now Lenoir Rhyne College) with the intention of becoming a Lutheran Minister. (St. Matthews Lutheran Church and other area churches were to help with his expenses in this venture.) To supplement the monetary gifts from the Congregations, he took employment as a clerk in L. C. Miller's Livery Stable. After one year in college, being unable to finance further tuition, he dropped out of school. He continued to work in the Livery Stable until he and Londie Etta Miller (L. C.'s daughter, who Martin was courting) were married on September 25, 1901. They set up housekeeping in Hickory. Martin went to work in the Hickory Post Office. He was the first rural mail carrier for that area and stayed with the postal service for four years. He then decided to try farming. With the help of his father-in-law, he acquired a farm near the village of Plateau (now RR #1, Newton, North Carolina). Along with his farming, being well educated, he taught at the Plateau School from 1914 to 1918. He also served as a Justice of the Peace in both Catawba and Lincoln Counties.
 In the summer of 1911, Martin "laid by" (completed cultivating) his cotton about the first of July, hooked his two mules (Zeb and Bill) to a covered wagon, and he and Londie and five young children went to West Virginia to visit family and friends.
 It took two weeks each way to make the trip from Newton, North Carolina, to Masonville and return, stopping at farms along the way to get milk for one year old Fred. In 1922, the Sites bought a Model T Ford car and prepared for another trip back to Grant County, West Virginia. To help the older children who were to remain at home to take care of the farm, the family chopped extra wood and got in exttra supplies. While chopping wood, Fred was bitten by a Copperhead Snake. Martin had been told by his friend, Dr. Ford, in case of a snake bite, kill a chicken and place the raw warm meat directly on the bite. Immediately, he caught one of Londie's young chickens, split it open and applied it to the bite area. Before long the chicken turned green with the poison. Two days later, Fred, along with the three younger children, left for West Virginia with their parents. On a hill in southern Virginia, the car's brakes failed and it was necessary to run the car into a fence post to get it stopped. No one was seriously injured, and with minor repairs, they were able to proceed. To Martin, this was all part of life and he took it all in stride, each day at a time.
 During World War II, Martin left the farm to help where he was needed. He worked as a carpenter in defense work in North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia. He and Londie also moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he worked making shipping crates for airplane parts. After the war was over, he and Londie went back to the 121 acre farm they had purchased in 1927 in Lincoln County. They livved there until 1949, when Martin decided it was time to quit farming. The sold the farm and moved into Newton, North Carolina. They raised eight children on the farm: Ossie Edith (7/7/02-8/11/66) married Charlie Jay Heavner; Luther Glenn (11/10/04-8/20/69) married 1) Bertha Ora Weaver (4/28/04-5 /11/36) 2) Betty Bea Mawyer; Olive Ruth (8/31/06) married William David Beck; Katie Pearl (6/7/08) married Austin George Weaver; Fred Leander (8/25/10) married Eunice Leona Proctor; ella Mae (6/1/13) married Paul Herman Yount; Paul Franklin (6/14/16) married Mary Ella Blackburn; Richard Earl (6/30/20) married Violet Beatrice Womack Mann.
 In 1961, Martin and Londie moved to Sanford, Florida, where they lived their remaining years near several children who had settled there some years earlier. Londie was 85 years 9 months of age at her death on July 17, 1966. at the time of Martin's death on December 6, 1972, at the age of 93 years, 8 months, there were nearly 100 descendants living in North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and California. As Martin stated when he witnessed his first space shot from what is now the Kennedy Space Center, "this isn't bad for a man who started out in a covered wagon from the hills of West Virginia."

Mildred Yount Gilbert as submitted to "Grant County Our Heritage" 1992 Grant County Commission and Don Mills, Inc. LC #92-81558

1. ↑ BKDATA.GED.

   Date of Import: Jun 28, 2003

2. ↑ Stamps-Sites TFS.FTW.

   Date of Import: May 13, 2004

3. ↑ BKDATA.GED.

   Date of Import: Jun 28, 2003

4. ↑ Stamps-Sites TFS.FTW.

   Date of Import: May 13, 2004

5. ↑ BKDATA.GED.

   Date of Import: Jun 28, 2003

6. ↑ Stamps-Sites TFS.FTW.

   Date of Import: May 13, 2004

7. ↑ BKDATA.GED.

   Date of Import: Jun 28, 2003

8. ↑ Stamps-Sites TFS.FTW.

   Date of Import: May 13, 2004

9. ↑ BKDATA.GED.

   Date of Import: Jun 28, 2003

10. ↑ Stamps-Sites TFS.FTW.

    Date of Import: May 13, 2004