Martin M. Johnston papers

Martin M. Johnston was born in DeKalb, Illinois in 1901. He attended the Augustana Music Conservatory and joined the Wennerberg Men's Chorus in 1922. By 1926 he had directed the Augustana Male Quartet, the Rock Island High School Band, the Washington Junior Band, the Franklin Junior Band, the Choir of Zion Church in Rock Island, the Olive Male Chorus, and the Augustana College Band.

While at Augustana, Johnston served as the secretary and later president of the Lyceum Board, played football, and was a member of the Pi Upsilon Gamma (PUG) fraternity. He married his wife Eva Nelson 26 December 1925.

In 1928, Johnston lead the Augustana College Band on an international tour from the Mid-Western and Eastern United States through Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, France, and England. After he graduated in 1929, Johnston took a job as the director of instrumental music in in the public schools in Marquette, Michigan where he also organized and led the Marquette Municipal band until 1941. In the mid 1940s, Johnston moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and took a job as executive secretary of the Grand Rapids Manufacturers' Association where he worked to plan post-war activities of manufacturers in the city and coordinate peacetime industrial production and employment.

He joined the Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation in 1946, and remained a member for the rest of his life, serving as branch manager in Saginaw, Michigan; St. Paul, Minnesota; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Birmingham, Michigan. He directed choirs at Lutheran and other churches in those cities. His final church was Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Bloomfield Hills where his ashes were scattered when he died in December 1971.