The totally amazing story of Stan Martin's ring

They buried Jewel Martin yesterday, down in Port Findlay on Lake Huron's picturesque North Channel.

Jewel died this past Tuesday at Sault Area Hospital.

She was 78.

The past two years have been rough on the Martin family, known in agricultural circles as one of Northern Ontario's most progressive dairy producers.

It's been just a little over two months since Jewel's husband Stan, the family's hard-working patriarch, died suddenly at Matthews Memorial Hospital in Richards Landing, St. Joseph Island.

Nineteen months before that, their daughter Shiela Matheson, a former Algoma school trustee, died of cancer.

Then came Jewel's death this week.

Three passings in less than two years - all hard blows for a close-knit Tarbutt Township farm family.

But at Jewel's funeral yesterday at the Arthur Funeral Home and Cremation Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, grief transfigured into raw amazement when mourners were shown this astonishing trio of carrots, posted here by special permission of the Martin family.

The carrots were found in Jewel's garden the day after she died. The following, as related to SooToday.com by relatives and friends of the Martin family, is the remarkable story of the Miracle of Stan Martin's Ring.

************************************************ Best friends for 72 years

Stan and Jewel had been married for 59 years, but they'd been best friends for much longer than that.

Their relationship actually began at West Korah school just outside the Sault, when Jewel was in Grade 1 and Stan in Grade 2.

It was the first day of classes, and Jewel was sitting under a tree, crying because she didn't know where she was supposed to put her lunch pail.

Stan, exhibiting a compassion for which he would become known throughout his adult life, came over to find out what was wrong.

He resolved Jewel's problem and the two remained close friends through their school years, marrying in 1947.

They moved to Tarbutt to take up farming, a calling at which Stan excelled.

Introducing the upright silo

The Martins pioneered the use of upright silos in Northern Ontario and Stan became a silo distributor, at the same time as he and Jewel built a herd of dairy cows that at one point numbered 90 - quite impressive for an Algoma operation.

Stan served on the Ontario Milk Marketing Board as a provincial director and was also a director of the Algoma Co-op in Echo Bay.

"In addition to being a hard worker, he cared for people," recalls Mike Tulloch, the Thessalon lay preacher who presided at both Stan's and Jewel's funerals.

"He could never stand to see someone treated poorly," Tulloch says. "He stood up for the less fortunate, whether they were children or a wife who was being treated badly."

Stan Martin was also known for his sense of humour, which he deftly employed to keep people in line and to defuse tense situations.

Jewel, the matriarch

As hard as Stan worked, Jewel worked even harder.

She laboured alongside Stan in the barn, milked the cows, loaded the hay (one year, there were 32,000 bales) and then spent her evenings tending to the myriad needs of five children.

"She was a very positive influence to people," Tulloch says. "She accepted everybody for who they were, and they thought the world of her because she was such a positive influence."

Which brings us to Stan's ring.

He lost it about four years ago, and after he died, Jewel was often heard commenting that she wished she still had it.

Mikayla and Shelley pull carrots

Then, the day after Jewel died, two of her grandchildren (Mikayla and Shelley) were pulling carrots from the garden Jewel had planted shortly after Stan died.

And there, encircling this cluster of three intertwined roots, was their Grandpa's missing ring!

Glenn Martin, clerk-treasurer for the Township of Tarbutt & Tarbutt Additional and a son to Stan and Jewel, brought the carrots to the Arthur Funeral Home yesterday.

"If we needed a sign that Shiela, Dad and Mum are together, this is a pretty good one!" Glenn says in a special card he's been e-mailing to family and friends.

'This is certainly a sign'

"It's more than coincidence," says Tulloch, who held up the inseparable carrots as he delivered the eulogy yesterday.

"I do believe in Divine Providence and this is certainly a sign," he told SooToday.com. "It's certainly a sign of comfort to the family."

Glenn Martin, meanwhile, is trying now to find the best way of preserving Jewel Martin's Miracle Carrots.

To see the e-card he's been distributing, please click here.