Word: martinisms
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...announcement of "John Martin's" new job coincided with the 20th anniversary of his magazine. His real name is Morgan von Roorbach Shepard. He says he is 55, looks about ten years older, is small, wiry, baldish. Contrary to strangely persistent legends (besides one that he is a woman) he is neither crippled nor blind, nor has he a harelip. His professional name dates back to his childhood on a Maryland plantation. A bird house in the backyard was occupied by a colony of martins, identified by his mother in her story telling as John, Joan, Robin, Alice...
...years. In the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he suffered injuries to his shoulder and foot. Short while later in Manhattan he underwent an operation, was in bed for months. Says he: "It was while I was flat on my back, after that operation, that I became 'John Martin.' . . . There has been a deep and strong undercurrent in my life, an urge that kept pushing me on. It was a great love of children, a desire to give them something of the joy and understanding my mother had given me. . . . I began to write verses for children. . . . I signed these...
About that time Morgan Shepard began building a subscription list of parents to whose children he would write "John Martin" letters, full of A. A. Milneish stories and whimsical drawings. Within two years he was sending 2,000 printed letters a month. In 1912 the letter writing business had grown so big (although "there was no money in it") that he changed it to the monthly magazine, John Martin's Book. Richly illustrated and printed, nearly barren of advertising, the magazine has not been profitable. To make money, Editor Shepard has written children's booklets for Wanamaker's store, advertisements...
Editor Shepard at present occupies a cluttered office in "John Martin's House," on the 14th floor of a Manhattan office building. He smokes cigarets incessantly, speaks confusingly about himself as a dual personality: "John Martin," altruist, idealist; and "hardboiled, almost unmoral" Morgan Shepard. Sometimes he will dash to a nearby hospital to amuse bedridden children. His favorite device for 30 years has been the "Quizz-wizz." He thrusts a pencil into a child's hand, holds a pad of paper under it, jiggles the child's elbow. Then he sketches lines around the meaningless scrawl, telling a story...
When he was 18 in California "John Martin" fell in love with a girl several years his senior. She married someone else. To visitors at his office he exhibits a baby's shoe which he keeps on the top shelf of a book case. It belonged to the California girl's firstborn. Some 25 years ago (he does not remember exactly when) he married Mary Elliott Putnam. They have no children. His wife does not share his enthusiasm for them. Also, he says, having children of his own might destroy, by "paternal poisoning," his interest in all children...