Martin Mathews never stopped working for youths

Martin L. Mathews, co-founder of the Mathews-Dickey Boys’ & Girls’ Club and for more than 60 years a force for racial harmony in the region, died Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022 in hospice care at Evelyn’s House in Creve Coeur, Mo. He was 97 years old.

Mathews will be remembered during a service at Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022.

Mr. Mathews (and all who knew him always called him mister) built comity and community through his work with the club. He started in 1960 with Hubert “Dickey” Ballentine(members always called him “Mr. Dickey”) when the two met under a shade trade in Handy Park, a few blocks east of Kingshighway and south of Natural Bridge. In 2021 with Mr. Mathews then serving in an emeritus role, the club merged with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis. Under terms of the partnership, Mathews-Dickey retained its name, location and youth sports programs.

Mr. Mathews and Mr. Dickey, both talented former semi-pro baseball players, believed education and character development were the paths to success. Mr. Mathews said he used baseball, and later football, basketball and swimming as bait, a way of engaging young people to learn teamwork and discipline that could carry over to the classroom, then on to college and careers.

Their teams known, as the Knights in baseball and the Bulldogs in football, were wildly successful, and turned out dozens of athletes who would become All-Americans in college, compete in the Olympics and join the professional ranks. But many more became doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, social workers and captains of industry.

For their work, Mr. Mathews and Mr. Dickey were hailed by presidents, Democrat and Republican. In 1982, Ronald Reagan presented the two with the Presidential Citizen’s Medal at a ceremony at the club. Bill Clinton’s White House lauded the Mathews-Dickey club as a 21st Century Learning Center. As vice-presidents, Joe Biden and Dan Quayle cited Mathews-Dickey for its leadership and mentoring programs.

In St. Louis, civic leaders and social justice activists across the political spectrum would turn out en masse for the club’s star-studded galas. Mr. Mathews counted among his friends and supporters, the brewery chiefs August A. Busch Jr. and August A. Busch III., Charles F. Knight, of Emerson, and Al Fleishman, a founder of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm, and Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Jack Buck. All are now deceased, but still engaged and recently involved in a variety of ways have been such luminaries as Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Ozzie Smith, Tony LaRussa, Ezekiel Elliott, and Joe Buck. Over the years, Mr. Mathews attracted corporate support from Ameren, Centene, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Enterprise Rent-A-Car to name just a few. Mr. Mathews provided a huge financial breakthrough for the club when he persuaded the United Way to provide critical financial support.

These were amazing accomplishments, particularly when considering Mr. Mathews’ origins. He was born Feb. 17, 1925 in the Missouri bootheel town of Neelyville, the 11th of 13 children of Ned Mathews, a farmer/laborer, who worked from dawn to well into the night to put food on the table for his brood, and Amanda Patterson Mathews, who read aloud from the Bible and the U.S. Constitution to her children, friends and neighbors.

Though he grew up in a segregated town, Mr. Mathews remembers kindnesses from white people. He noted that he owed his name to a white obstetrician who advised his mother to name her baby Martin Luther because he was imagining that this child would grow up to be as influential as the man who triggered the Protestant reformation.

As Mr. Mathews came of age so too would the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King. And Mr. Mathews took his cues from Dr. King often quoting from the “I Have a Dream” speech in which King declared that our children “should not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

He was given to other mantras that he would share with his youngsters, including: the three Rs – Respect, Restraint and Responsibility.

Mr. Mathews and Mr. Dickey drew strong support because they were almost entirely selfless. Mr. Dickey never took a salary. Mr. Mathews would eventually accept a salary as the club’s chief executive, but he had to put together a series of day jobs to support his wife and five daughters. Mr. Mathews rose to a management job in the 1970s with Burkart Manufacturing, a maker of automobile seat cushions. But he lost his position when the company was sold. A lucrative job out of town beckoned, but Mr. Mathews said he couldn’t leave his boys behind.

He took a night job at an apartment building, a posh high rise located on Skinker Boulevard, he remembered in an interview. One morning in 1975, the residents picked up their morning newspaper and saw a familiar face. Their security guard was on the front page as a recipient of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat Humanities Award.

Starting with pot-luck dinner events and barbecues, Mr. Mathews and Mr. Dickey patched together a supporting network that included single moms, dads working multiple shifts while still finding time to coach, Bob Russell, a sporting goods supplier who extended credit (for which the club always made good), along with the CEOs at Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Mathews leaves to mourn his passing, daughters, Juanita Amanda Mathews, Marilyn Darlene Mathews, Angelic Inez Mathews Cole, an adopted daughter Rachel Jennifer Mathews and grandchildren Clayton Mathews, Isabeau and Martin Washington, and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.

Preceding Mr. Mathews in death were his wife, Barbara Albright Mathews, daughters Phyllis Marie Mathews and Betty Joe Mathews.

This obituary was provided by Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club