Sarah Martin

SARAH M. MARTIN, 91, of Paris, passed from this life Thursday January 26, 2012 at Paris Regional Medical Center North. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Monday January 30, 2012 in the chapel of Starrett Funeral Home with Rev. Billy Norris officiating. Burial will follow in Evergreen Cemetery.

The family will receive friends from 2:00 to 3:00 Sunday afternoon at the funeral home.

Sarah was born September 30, 1920 in Powderly, a daughter of William and Lily Mae Couch Briscoe. She was a retired nurse, and also retired from Campbells Soup Company. For some twenty-four years she was a member of the Immanuel Baptist Church. She often referred to herself as "The Stubborn Irishman," but her strength and tenacity was best exemplified in the care and love she showed for her family, and the care of her husband through an illness of forty-two years. She will be remembered as an avid fisherman, gardener and lover of flowers and as a wonderful cook, but most of all for her devotion to her children and attention to her grandchildren, who, in her eyes, could do no wrong.

She married Oscar Martin on December 2, 1941 in Clarksville, and together they shared forty-seven years until his death on November 10, 1988.

In addition to Oscar she was preceded in death by a son, Harold Martin, and by two brothers and four sisters.

Sarah is survived by four daughters, Margie Rogers and husband Gene, Sondra (Sandi) Rhoades and husband Robert, Jo Lynn Exum and husband Tommy, and Becky Fulfer; two sons, Michael Martin and wife Sherry and Larry Martin and wife Sherry; fifteen grandchildren; twenty-seven great-grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a host of other relatives and friends.

Named to serve as pallbearers are grandsons, Bo Exum, Sean Rhoades, Darrin Fulfer Taylor Martin, Jason Martin and John Martin. Honorary pallbearers are Robert Prunty and Gary Martin.

In lieu of usual remembrances the family requests memorial contributions in Sarah's memory to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105; or to the St. Vincent DePaul Society, 3300 Clarksville Street, Paris, TX 75460.