Martin Strom
January 9, 2008

"From Minnesota my (now ex) husband and I were married in a small church in Maple Lake by Martin. That was 1976 and he also baptized our two sons together in 1982. My parents attending from Nebraska, my mother felt she was in the presence of a celebrity with Rev. Strom officiating. She was a longtime subscribe of Kitchen Klatter, Martin's extended family publication. She read them cover to cover and Martin grew up in the pages of her copies among the recipes she treasured. She saved the tattered pages until she died in 2007. Martin was my friend and though I lost contact after he left Maple Lake, he lived only 2 blocks from us. While there, he and Eugenie traveled to Israel and we spent an evening in their home l istening to him tell about their adventure. His congregation greatly admired him and were saddened when he departed. Having just searched for him finding his obituary this Sep 26, 2015, I am now grieving his death as if it just occurred, brought to tears at the realization he departed this life. I believe he knows I hold him in a special place in my memory. Bless you and please watch over me, my friend."

"I am a former Kitchen-Klatter reader and this just came to my notice. My sincerest sympathies, my thoughts and prayers are with you. It is so difficult to lose your only son."

"How shocked I was to learn just today (July 30) of Martin's passing. Martin, Matt and I were roommates for 2 years at United Seminary. I was the "foreigner" - I grew up in Pennsylvania. Martin met Genie through me. I learned all about Kitchen Klatter from Martin and of course one cupboard in our seminary apartment was filled with Kitchen Klatter flavorings. dMartin taught me how to drive stick shift in his Chevy Super Sport that he had at UTS - Matt Geiger also gave me lessons with his VW bug - what a contrast. It has been several years since Martin and I were last in touch. I felt moved to re-establish the connection and now have learned of his death. I extend my heartfelt sympathy . . . but I can just picture Martin and Matt together in the great beyond, sharing in conversation and laughter as we did so often during our seminary days."

"My thoughts and prayers are with you as they have been during the past several months. I am glad I got to spend the time I did with Martin."

"It certainly gives you pause when you hear that one of your ol' high school classmates has passed away, and that's how it is for me learning of the death of Rev. Martin Strom. We were both in the Shenandoah High Class of 1965 -- the biggest graduating class ever and, as we always argued, the best, too! As kids, many of us in the class looked on Martin as kind of a "star," since his mother and aunts -- the Driftmiers -- would frequently mention him during their "Kitchen-Klatter" show on KMA and/or KFNF. As our lives went on after high school, I did not keep in touch with Martin, other than to see him at our class' occasional reunions. I noticed he always seemed to have just the right bearing for a Congregational minister, and actually, a right-sounding name for it, too: "Rev. Martin Strom." As we all went into middle age and then beyond, Martin seemed to become more of a free spirit. And at our 40-year reunion in Shenandoah in the fall of 2005, Martin surprised us all with his description of what he'd been up to lately. My wife Carla was so intrigued she wrote that Martin was our "most interesting" classmate there! Here is the portion of her column, on our Internet site www.Offenburger.com, that pertained to Martin: "You might think that for a Class of â??77 grad like me who grew up somewhere else, the stories from the Shenandoah Class of '65 might have gotten old and boring â?? but hey, it didnâ??t happen. This is a class of lively and fun folks who are still doing neat things. "I must say, most interesting to me was the 58-year-old former minister turned professional hitchhiker! Thatâ??s right, for the past couple of years Martin Strom has spent some of his time in Shenandoah, with his aging mother, and some of his time hitchhiking around the country. "I had him tell me as many experiences as he was willing to tell â?? 'never a bad one,' he insisted. He said Jackson, Mississippi, was the most difficult town to get out of â?? over 2,000 cars passed him by before he got a ride. Heâ??s never been picked up by anyone driving a PT Cruiser. Many rides come from convicted felons jealous that they have to remain in a certain state, but excited to hear Martinâ??s travel tales. Heâ??s had a few bad drivers, so bad he wanted to stop the cars and get out. Heâ??s been picked up by both males and females of all ages. And never a bad experience! I find that amazing, donâ??t you? I told Martin he should be writing a book. But he said he 'never have thought it was all that interesting.' " Oh, but it seems interesting enough to me now, as I think about it, that I am kicking myself for not following up to ask him why he did it, what he learned out there, and what it meant. But perhaps in years ahead, when we in the Class of '65 are having our reunions "on the other side," we can have our classmate Rev. Martin Strom give us a sermon about it. Farewell, ol' pal."

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