Gordon Morehouse Martin

Oct 17, 1916 - Jan 4, 2007

Gordon M. Martin, 90, a Bethesda resident and physicist at what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, died January 4, 2007, at  Casey House hospice in Rockville [Maryland]. He had aspiration pneumonia.

At the National Bureau of Standards from 1951 to 1980, Mr. Martin helped develop a patch test for the skin of a weather balloon as well as a safe container for transporting hazardous materials.

Gordon Morehouse Martin was a native of South Bend, Indiana, and a 1938 physics graduate of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
The next year, he received a master's degree in physics from the University of Idaho and went on to do graduate work in physics at the University of Minnesota.

During World War II, he was an associate scientist in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the Manhattan Project, the code name for the U.S. effort to develop an atomic bomb. Among other assignments, he took post-explosion oscilloscope measurements near the bomb test site.

He taught university-level physics before settling in the Washington, DC area in 1951. He was an early member of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase [Maryland] YMCA and won gold and silver medals participating in a senior Olympics tournament at what is now Towson University. His avocations included playing tennis, fencing, jogging and doing crossword puzzles.

Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Frances Fetter Martin of Bethesda [Maryland]; four children, George Martin of Bethesda [Maryland], Elizabeth Martin Cisin of Washington, DC, David Martin of Lewisburg, West Virginia, and Anne Martin of Modesto, California; a sister; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Washington Post

Source: FindAGrave.com

01/09/2026 EJS

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154713294/gordon_morehouse-martin