Jackson County OR Archives Obituaries.....McDonough, Martin July 17, 1925
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Medford (Oregon) Mail Tribune, Wednesday, 22 July 1925, p. 10
In Memoriam, Martin McDonough. The little group which assembled at the funeral 
parlor last Monday to pay their last tribute to the memory of Martin McDonough 
represented by the remnant of as sturdy and valiant a pioneer element as ever 
peopled the western wilderness and made it possible for the moneychangers to 
desecrate the temple, and the mercenary crowd to function.
     Martin, perhaps was as true to type as any resident of Southern Oregon of 
that host of middle western argonauts driven west by that desire for land and 
personal freedom which was the actuating cause of the great pioneer movement 
to the west in the “forty-nine period” the fifties and sixties. Born in this 
valley under the great handicap of physical disability, he always showed the 
personal courage, good judgment and energy which enabled the last previous 
generation to conquer the wilderness. Inherited from worthy ancestry, he found 
inbred that love of the [-?--fold in newspaper] early history of this valley, 
and to the end, kept posted as to the best breeding and achievements of the 
equine family.
     Few even of his friends knew the extent of his disability, and his 
indomitable determination to overcome it. As a child, his first attempts to 
walk were upon his knees equipped with pads. The good work of a specialist in 
hip trouble enabled his recovery as hew grew, until he was able to participate 
in the sports of childhood and youth with his fellows. Disease of the bone 
again made it obligatory for him to spend three years of his best boyhood in 
bed. Only his fondness for reading and the good offices of old family friends, 
whose kindness was remembered to the last, made this endurable. Then, when he 
had recovered the use of his limbs, he lost an eye by accident.
     He had the sweet solace of an marriage with a most worthy woman, 
continuing for a period of almost ten years, and the fact that her children by 
a previous marriage today hold his memory in the same veneration as if he had 
been their own father is proof that he proved equal to the task of raising a 
family in a worth-while way.
     He was not mercenary. He had rather exalted ideas about the service due 
from all of us to his fellowman. With a well-balanced mental equipment he was 
self-trained in accounting and always in demand to help his friends solve 
their individual problems. There was more genuine sorrow shown by those beside 
his bier than was apparent at the last sad rites attending the passing of any 
recent case of an old pioneer who had bid farewell to his earthly troubles. It 
was a source of consolation that his end was not attended with personal 
suffering. He certainly was entitled to a peaceful end, after such a lifetime 
of suffering.
     To paraphrase the poet: –-“We come into the world all naked and bare; we 
go out of the world, the Lord knows where; but a thoroughbred here is a 
thoroughbred there.” We love to think of Martin as a thoroughbred, with all 
the characteristics which distinguish a thoroughbred, coupled with a kindly 
regard for the welfare of his fellowman, which is all to lacking in the 
average man of today. May he rest in peace. –A Friend.

Additional Comments:
Date of death obtained from additional obituary published in Medford (Oregon) 
Mail Tribune and Oregon Death Certificate.

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