Charles Harrison Martin, D.D.S. 89, of Mattapoisett died May 3, 2008 at Sippican Health Care Center in Marion after a long illness. He was born March 11, 1919 in Kilmichael, Mississippi, the son of Ruth Harrison Martin and Charles Bartley Martin.
He attended schools in Gilford, NH, Cape Elizabeth, ME and several other places in New England as his father’s work as an explosives expert for American Cyanamid caused the family several relocations. He was a 1942 graduate of the University of New Hampshire. That same year he enlisted in the Army Air Force. On September 10, 1942 he married Priscilla Preston of Taunton, MA, a classmate from UNH, in Las Vegas, Nevada. They were stationed in various places in the southwestern United States until his deployment to Italy, where he served as a Supply Officer. He attained the rank of Second Lieutenant. Upon his discharge at the end of the war he enrolled at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore, graduating in 1949. He practiced dentistry in Taunton for 34 years, retiring in 1984.
In 1970 the family moved permanently to their winterized summer cottage in Mattapoisett. In the late 1950s, Charlie bought an old wooden 18’ catboat, named her SHAM after his two daughters, and taught them and himself to sail. He invented and built numerous pumps in an effort to keep the leaky old boat afloat, utilizing windmills, pendulums and siphons, among other things. He enjoyed playing golf, reading the Wall Street Journal and fishing. His happiest times were spent at the Davy Crockett Big Game & Anglers Club cabins on Canada Falls Lake in northwestern Maine, which was started in the early twentieth century by his father and a group of friends. The last time he was well enough to go there was in July of 1998, but the place was always in his thoughts and he wished he could have gone there just once more.
He was predeceased by his wife on July 2, 1994, and a sister, Ruth Martin Guilbeau.
He is survived by two daughters and sons-in-law, Sharon Ruth "Sherry" Martin Schneider and her husband Bennett B. Schneider, IV of Mattapoisett, and Pamela Martin Spooner and her husband Brent F. Spooner of Phippsburg, Maine; a sister and brother-in-law, Mary Aneve Martin Meredith and her husband, Robert K. Meredith of Center Barnstead, NH; four nieces and one nephew and their children, several cousins in the South, and a special friend, Anita Silva, a kindred spirit who was so helpful to him in his last years.
Private arrangements are with the Saunders-Dwyer Mattapoisett Home For Funerals, 50 County Rd. (Rt. 6) Mattapoisett.