FOR THIS LANCASTER RESIDENT, THE KING WAS JUST THE THING.

Byline: BETTIE RENCORET

LANCASTER - Lois Martin and her daughter Valerie tell time by the syncopated rhythm of an Elvis clock with swiveling hips for the pendulum.

Their home is filled with Elvis Presley plates, music boxes, pictures and even authentic, framed silver and gold records.

``I've always loved music,'' said Lois, ``and I thought Elvis was great, so I bought all of his beginning records. That started the collection, then Valerie took it up. Most of this stuff is hers. People give her gifts, and things have just multiplied.''

With the approaching 20th anniversary of his death Saturday, Lois and her daughter have nostalgic memories of The King.

They attended two of his concerts, one at the Forum in Inglewood and the other at the Long Beach Arena. After his death, they and Lois' granddaughter Julie visited his home at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn.

``He was only 42 when he died,'' Lois said. ``It's hard to believe that he'd be a senior citizen himself by now if he were still alive. I prefer to think of him as he was.''

Lois can be found most days greeting callers and serving their needs at the Lancaster United Methodist Church.

With years of experience in the business offices of banks and aircraft manufacturers, she applies public relations principles to her 25 hours a week on the job. Her duties supplement those of the church's full-time secretary and office manager, Angela Rainer, and she loves what she does.

Lois was born in Willowick, Ohio, just one block away from Lake Erie. After she, the fifth child, was born, the family moved to a farm 25 miles from Cleveland. Two more children were born at the farm.

Her mother died when she was 10 years old, but she and her siblings were taught the value of independence and dependability.

``Believe me, nobody gave us anything for nothing,'' Lois said. ``We kids worked for everything we got, and it didn't hurt us a bit.''

At age 21, she married Walter Martin in Euclid, Ohio, and they headed west in a 1951 Studebaker to see the rest of the world.

``You'd have thought we were homeless,'' she said. ``We lived out of the car, but we had money. We took a month to get to California, and when we did, we landed in Los Angeles.''

In 1953 they bought a house in Reseda for $11,975. Their first child, Walter, was born in 1954 while they still lived in that house, and Derek came along soon after. Valerie trailed the boys.

There followed 17 years of Scouting leadership, 14 of them as a Girl Scouts of America leader.

Her sons achieved Eagle Scout status, and Valerie made First Class, the Eagle equivalent.

``We spent a lot of time camping,'' Lois laughed.

Her education included courses sponsored by the American Banking Association and some classes at Los Angeles Community College in North Hollywood, so she went to work as a teller part time.

When her marriage ended in 1973, she found it necessary to seek full-time employment. The Reseda bank where she worked made her a teller, and she worked her way up from there to operations, then loan officer, making loans to students.

With more determination than money, Lois developed an attitude.

``When I was faced with tasks I'd never done before, like wallpapering, painting, tiling, stuff like that, I'd just look at it and say to myself, I can do that, and do it. I even amazed myself.''

The tool savvy she developed at that time has served her well since then in pursuing another hobby. Lois and her daughter now build lawn Nativity scenes, which are in great demand around Christmastime.

``It's really Valerie's project, but whatever she starts I finish,'' she laughed.

She feels a rapport with Derek's children and makes a point of attending their football games or theatrical performances. She laughingly recounted how she entertains them with stories about her early years.

``My grandson was horrified that I didn't have television or Nintendo when I was growing up,'' Lois said. ``He couldn't believe that we got ice for our icebox from a man with a truck instead of having a refrigerator and that our bathroom was outdoors and didn't flush.

``I can tell you I'm truly grateful for all our technical advances. Valerie has most of Elvis' movies on video. It'd be a shame if we couldn't watch them once in a while.''

LANCASTER - Menus for the week at the senior life nutrition sites in Lancaster, Palmdale and Pearblossom have been announced. All meals include bread, margarine and coffee, tea or milk.

Monday: Fish Creole, rice, broccoli, marinated beets, peach crisp.

Tuesday: Lasagna, Italian vegetables, tossed salad, fruit.

Wednesday: Hearty beef stew, corn with peppers, coleslaw, ice cream.

Thursday: Juice, roast pork with gravy, stuffing, peas, carrots and pineapple, spiced applesauce.

Friday: Juice, lemon chicken, scalloped potatoes, spinach, Jell-O salad, cookies.

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Photo

Photo: Lois Martin displays a figure from a Nativity scene she and her daughter are building.

Bettie Rencoret/Special to the Daily News