- Date Of Birth: August 24, 1935
- Date Of Death: May 20, 2017
- State: Colorado
Carol Sue Markham was born in Southern Illinois on August 24, 1935, during an unusual summer snowstorm which explains her tales of walking to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways. Her daddy, John Markham, worked on the railroad and her mom, Ruby Mae, at the comic book factory. Carol was born sandwiched between two beautiful sisters, Marilyn Hancock of Chattanooga, Tennessee and Janice Markham formerly of Marissa, Illinois. The sisters shared a happy childhood attending school in a one room schoolhouse, sharing a single bike and riding trains to Grandma’s house to eat cookies. Carol loved cookies. All kinds of cookies. You name it, she ate it, so long as it was chocolate. This was a trait she carried throughout her long happy life. Once she graduated from high school, Carol hightailed it out of Southern Illinois to Germany where she had many wonderful and untold adventures before she ran out of money and wrote home asking for more. When that ran out, she returned stateside. Missing the imaginary hills of her childhood, Carol moved to San Francisco where the real hills were steep and every day she walked to the bus in wool suits and sneakers, uphill both ways. When Carol’s Daddy died, Carol took care of her mother, Ruby. They had many friends and threw loud lavish parties where Elvis’ voice blasted from the phonograph, champagne flowed from a fountain and Brie cheese was served gooey straight from the oven. Growing up Carol was known as the “smart one,” a title she deserved considering she became a computer programmer when computers filled rooms and men seldom heard women talk, especially in FORTRAN. She even wrote part of the code for Wells Fargo’s first electronic funds transfer, an accomplishment for which she proudly earned a plastic trophy shaped like a penis. Carol loved reading and eating and chocolate and singing and cats. When she moved to Colorado in September of 2004, she brought with her two mirror-image cats – Jack with a right eye, Sonny with a left – and too many Elvis CDs to count. For many years, those one-eyed cats ate dinner listening to “You Ain’t Nothing but Hound Dog” while glaring at Carol with their singular eyes. While in Colorado for nearly 13 years, Carol entertained her niece, Stephanie Stevenson and nephew-in-law Peter Cicatelli with tales so tall they seemed unlikely coming from a woman with such short legs. To this day Stef and Peter laugh at Carol’s crazy antics and, shall we say, interesting sense of humor. Carol made her final journey on May 20, 2017, where she joined her parents and little sister, Janice Kay, on the other side of the moon. The rest of her family remains earthbound including: sister Marilyn Hancock and niece Terry Stevenson of Chattanooga; nephew Keith Stevenson, his son and wife Jackie of Colorado; nephew Jimmy Williams, wife Sherri and their children of Washington, MO; and niece Susie Williams, her daughter and Mike, her long time companion, of St. Louis. Stephanie and Peter live in Denver where they eat chocolate and drink champagne and fondly remember the times they spent laughing with Aunt Sue.
