Compton Martin, MTA worker
Compton Martin, far right, poses for a photograph with his wife, Camille, left, and daughters Kimberley and Melanie. Martin, father of Newsday sports reporter Kimberley Martin, died Feb. 12, 2012. Credit: Handout
Compton Martin, a native of Guyana with a passion for cricket, impressed family members with the dedication he showed for his MTA job, despite the pain of bone cancer.
Martin faced a long walk from where he parked his car to his job maintaining buses at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Ingrid Collins, his sister-in-law.
To allow for his slower pace, he just left home earlier each day, she said. After a tumor in a vertebrae was diagnosed in 2002 "he continued to go to work every day," she said.
Martin, 61, the father of Newsday sports reporter Kimberley A. Martin, died Sunday. Friends and family members were at his side at Peninsula Hospital Center in Far Rockaway.
Martin, of Arverne, Queens, "was a man of very few words," Collins said. "It was more about the example he set."
"He was a hard worker who just never complained," Kimberley Martin said of her father, who also enjoyed taking family photos and creating computer slideshows.
Born in Georgetown, Guyana, "he came into his own on the cricket field in the late 1960s . . . best known for being a slugger who could lash the ball all over the field," Kimberley Martin, 31, wrote in a memorial statement for her father's funeral service program.
Be it lending his car or just sharing the latest international cricket news, "whenever you needed him, he was always there for you," said longtime friend Deryck Griffith, 59, of Brooklyn, who played on teams with Martin in Guyana.
Concerned that his other daughter, Melanie, 26, of Arverne, who has autism, would have to walk home alone after a day program, Martin camped out at her bus stop instead to give her a ride, Collins said.
After moving to Brooklyn in 1980 with his wife, Camille Collins-Martin, 60, Martin studied to become a mechanic while holding down two full-time office-clerical jobs. He worked as a mechanic rebuilding transmissions before joining the MTA, where he worked for 17 years before going on disability leave in 2010.
"Although not one for expressing his feelings, Compton always showed his love and loyalty for his family and friends through his actions; whether it was a surprise gift for one of his daughters, spending time gardening with his wife, or simply fighting through the pain to visit an old friend," wrote Kimberley Martin, of Lyndhurst, N.J.
A telling moment came last August when Compton Martin drove his family to Philadelphia to see his daughter receive the emerging journalist award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
Opting to use a cane, not a walker, he traversed the convention center, giving no appearance of a struggle, Collins said.
Besides his wife and daughters, he is survived by a sister, Maureen Martin in Guyana; an aunt; and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.
Visiting will be Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m., followed by a service from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Frank J. Barone Funeral Home, 4502 Avenue D, Brooklyn. The family asks that in lieu of flowers donations be made in his memory to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
