New retiree Martin finds gardening therapeutic
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor (217) 244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu
Retiree Mary Martin loves flowers. Martin, who retired last November from her job as staff secretary in Career Services in the College of Business, said flower gardening is therapeutic. Since she retired, much of Martin’s free time has been spent revamping the landscaping around her Urbana home, motivated in part by a sewer replacement that cut an ugly swath through the back yard. Perennials are Martin’s favorites: lilac and forsythia bushes, clematis, hydrangeas, iris and mums. As Martin prepared for her retirement last year, she said she learned from a friend’s mistake. The friend, who had retired several years earlier, had confided that she had a very difficult time initially because she suddenly found herself home alone every day in the bleak days of winter. “I think anyone who is retiring needs to have a backup plan of interests to get involved in,” Martin said. Martin had prepared a list of pursuits – volunteering at a local hospital, church activities – that she planned to take up if she quit working entirely. However, those activities have been superseded so far by horticulture. And this gardener who favors plants that return year after year also returned to campus. After the 60-day hiatus mandated by the State Universities Retirement System, Martin returned to the College of Business in a part-time position that comprises portions of her former job. Although Martin enjoyed the opportunity that the break provided to spend time with her children and grandchildren, she said that during the last two weeks she was rapidly becoming restless and was anticipating going back to the office. “When I decided a little over a year ago that it was about time for me to retire, the college offered me the option of taking the 60 days off and coming back half time, I took them up on it because I am very attached to some of the people here, and I love my job,” Martin said. Working three days per week, Martin now shares her old job with another staff member, shouldering mainly the long-term projects and planning activities that do not require daily attention. For the past 10 years or so, a key portion of those responsibilities has been coordinating the Business Career Fair, a semiannual event sponsored by the College of Business and several student organizations that enables job-seekers to hobnob with corporate recruiters on campus. “That’s what really brings me back: I love working with the kids and I love working with the recruiters,” Martin said. “It gets to be a real rat race the last couple, three days before the fair, but I’ve been very proud of the Business Career Fair and what we do with it.” The most recent fair, which was Sept. 15-16 at the Illini Union, drew at least 2,900 student visits and 604 recruiters representing168 companies. “It’s a major undertaking and a challenge that I’ve always enjoyed,” Martin said. “Some of the recruiters who’ve been coming for a number of years have gotten to be old friends. I touch base with them each year and find out whose kid is graduating high school and will be coming down here next year.” Martin was one of those eager scholars herself once, having graduated from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences with a bachelor’s degree in consumer and textile marketing in 1954. After graduation, Martin returned to her hometown, married and for the next 30 years was the one-woman office that ran the electrical and heating contracting company owned by her husband, Francis, in Quincy, Ill. With their children grown, the Martins decided to scale back the grueling work hours that entrepreneurship demanded. When Martin visited campus with their younger son, who was considering graduate school at Illinois, a feeling of homecoming stirred within her. “I walked through the Union and out on the Quad, and it was like I had never left. It was like I could just settle right back in here,” Martin said. After Francis secured a job with a local company, they sold their business and returned to the Champaign-Urbana community in 1988. The following year, Martin took a newly created secretarial position in the College of Business, a job that she held until her retirement last fall. Besides the friendships Martin has formed on the job, she has another compelling reason for keeping herself busy. While researching Alzheimer’s disease, a condition that is sapping her mother’s vigor, Martin learned that intellectual stimulation is believed to be potent preventative medicine. “The most important thing they say you should do is keep your mind active. I don’t figure I’m going to keep it any more active any place in the world other than right here in this chair,” Martin said. In addition to her work, Martin also exercises her mind with crossword puzzles and reading, especially biographies, and currently is reading a book on the life of Benjamin Franklin.
