Downfall and Death
Martin was a millionaire when the great stock market crash occurred. Overnight, he lost almost everything. When Wright's autobiography came out, Martin was so impoverished he could not afford to buy a $6.00 copy. In a letter Wright said that of the mere six copies he was receiving, Darwin Martin would receive one if no one else. The money that Martin had lent Wright, over seventy thousand dollars, was never repaid.
After a series of strokes, Darwin Martin died in 1935 at the age of 70. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery. Wright designed his only cemetery monument, the "Blue Sky Mausoleum," at Darwin Martin's request, but because of the family's declining fortunes, it was not built until 2004, when Forest Lawn administrators erected the Blue Sky monument in honor of Darwin Martin and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Read more about this topic: Darwin D. Martin
Famous quotes containing the words downfall and/or death:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Once one’s up against it, the precise manner of one’s death has obviously small importance.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)