ROCHELLE — Alice Eakle Marks, aviation historian, artist, and community activist, died Dec. 12, 2017, at her daughter’s home in Edmonds, Wash. She was 96.
The first of eight children, Alice was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 2, 1921, to Mary (Mercer) and Paul V. Eakle while her father earned a pharmacy degree. Starting in 1924, she grew up on emergency air mail landing fields (airports) near Waterman, managed by her parents, sparking a lifelong love of aviation and atmospheric science. She graduated as valedictorian from Waterman High School and attended Northern Illinois State Normal School (now Northern Illinois University) where she worked on the college newspaper, The Northern Star.
From the late 1920s through the 1930s, she met many famous pilots flying in the early years of Transcontinental Air Mail Service (New York to San Francisco route). As a teenager, she worked as a weather observer for the U.S. Weather Bureau at the emergency airport in Waterman. During the Great Depression, while living at the airport on the NW corner of IL 23 and U.S. 30 intersection, her parents formed the “Eakle Family Band,” a marching band and dance troupe comprised of Alice and her seven younger siblings. Though small of stature, Alice played the Sousaphone and bugle as well as singing and dancing with her siblings. The band accompanied a float her father built depicting a battleship he christened the “U.S.S. Illinois” and performed across the U.S. and in Toronto, Canada.
As a teen and talented artist, Alice met two of her heroines: Amelia Earhart and Katharine Hepburn, presenting them with portraits she had drawn of each celebrity.
One of the local pilots she met at the airport in Waterman was Henry Marks, who joined the Army Air Corps in 1942. After Henry and Alice married in 1943, she traveled with him to air bases around the United States. During the war, Alice drew beautiful young women, known as “Shady Ladies,” on roll-down window shades, which she mailed to soldiers on duty around the world to boost their morale.
Hank and Alice raised a son, Michael, and two daughters, Heather and Melissa, adjacent to the airport in Rochelle.
Alice had four careers: teacher, artist, community activist and aviation historian. She taught nine years in the Rochelle elementary schools. Through her art business, the “Little Red Hen Art Workshop and Press,” she illustrated books, designed greeting cards, and produced beautiful paper dolls.
She was a founding member of the Flagg Township Historical Society and Rochelle League of Women Voters. While fighting to protect local farmland from the E-W Tollway (now I-88), she became involved in local and state politics. She was subsequently appointed as a director of the Illinois Tollway Commission, the only woman at the time on any U.S. tollway authority.
In aviation history, she worked to preserve the history of U.S. Air Mail and was a member of the Air Mail Pioneers, comprised mainly of former Air Mail pilots. Her experience and interest resulted in her laying groundwork for a national historic trail for the U.S. Air Mail Service. In 2010, at age 89, she was treated to a ride in a rare, restored Boeing 40-C mail/passenger plane similar to those that had landed at her family’s emergency airfield.
Alice spent time with her daughter, Melissa, and family and friends at her home near Rochelle, and in Edmonds, Wash., with her daughter, Heather, and family. Alice was loved and adored by family, friends, caregivers, and pets. After a stroke in 2013 while in Edmonds, Alice was unable to return to her home in Rochelle. She was a member of the Edmonds Senior Center, where she enjoyed ballroom dancing for several years.
Alice was preceded in death by her son, Michael, in 1978; husband, Henry, in 2001; her sisters, Mavis Williams, Joey Clark, and Dea Eakle; two brothers, John Eakle, and David “Buck” Eakle.
Alice is survived by her sisters, Nancy Coss, of Surprise, Ariz., and Angela Finstad, of Minneapolis, Minn.; daughters, Heather (Cliff Sanderlin) Marks of Edmonds, Wash., and Melissa Van Drew of Chadwick; son-in-law, Roger Van Drew of Chadwick; granddaughter, Andrea (Kyle) Moore, and great-grandchildren, Samuel and Evelyn Moore of DeKalb; grandson, Jeremy Van Drew of Chadwick; step-grandsons, Galen Sanderlin of Bellingham, Wash., and Joel Sanderlin of Edmonds, Wash.; step-great-grandchildren, Liluye and Kaleb Sanderlin of Edmonds, Wash.; and numerous nieces and nephews.
A funeral will be held for Alice in Rochelle on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018. Visitation will be held from 10 – 11 a.m., followed by the funeral service at 11 a.m., all held at Unger-Horner Funeral Home, 400 N. Sixth St., Rochelle. Upon conclusion, burial service will be at North Clinton Cemetery, Waterman.
Later in January, Heather Marks and Cliff Sanderlin will hold a memorial at their home in Edmonds, Wash.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be sent to the Waterman Area Heritage Society in Waterman.
An online guest book is available at www.UngerHorner.com.