Kim L. Martin

Kim Lee Martin of Chicago, IL, and Shelby, MI, passed away in home hospice on March 18, 2025.

In his last several weeks he had a dedicated team of caregivers, including his wife, Andrea, daughter Emma, brother-in-law Rob Easter, sisters Chris Mills and Lisa Easter, and nurse Grant Goode, to help him after unsuccessful treatment for leiomyosarcoma, diagnosed one year ago.

A proud son of West Virginia, Kim was born in Beckley on June 8, 1954. He was a man of remarkable gifts and diverse interests but bore them all with modest dignity. As a young man he represented Shady Springs High School, playing trumpet in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Tournament of Roses Parade, one of two students in his state to win a place in the McDonald’s All American High School Band. 

After studying music at Concord College, he switched to forestry at West Virginia University (Go Mountaineers!), where he received a BS degree. While a forestry fellow at Purdue University he switched to engineering and, after graduation (BSCE), he worked in Chicago at Sargent & Lundy designing nuclear power plant components. He was later hired by Portland Cement Association, where he worked for 23 years, becoming Director, MIS, while also earning an MS in computer science and an MBA, at DePaul University and Keller School of Management, respectively.

As a young man, he played piano as well as trumpet, and in more recent years he studied fiddle, banjo and guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music. In addition to his musicianship, he was an excellent cook and an adept woodworker, but he most enjoyed life at the farm in Shelby, where he combined his engineering skills with gardening and created a beautiful, bountiful garden each year, unless the groundhogs got the upper hand. He especially loved riding his mower back and forth on the vast lawn beneath a colonnade of ancient walnut trees, contemplating deer and wild turkeys grazing in the main meadow each golden afternoon, and admiring the bright, clear beauty of the moon and stars above the dark woods at night. And he loved his big, red barn.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Robert Weldon “Horsey” Martin and Margaret Ann "Peggy” Hedrick Martin of Oak Hill, WV, and his father-in-law, Thomas Edward Zurick. He is survived by daughter Jessica (Aurelius, Vincent, Liam and Gabriel), son, Michael, mother-in-law, Beverly Zurick, brother-in-law Ken Mills, niece, Sarah Zurick, nephew Sam Zurick, nephew Josh Mills (Stacy), many cousins and countless friends over a lifetime, including his Twin Lake pals and the Newell brothers, Griff and Bobby, who will always think of him as “The City Boy.”

Aftercare arrangements entrusted to Chicagoland Cremation options of Schiller Park, Il