- Date Of Birth: April 13, 1940
- Date Of Death: September 9, 2018
- State: Illinois
Marthann Markle, 78, passed away Sunday, September 9, 2018, following an extended battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.
Marthann was born April 13, 1940 to Mildred and Charles Bush of Marshall, Illinois. She married James R. Markle on January 1, 1965 at the First Congregational Church in Marshall.
Marthann is survived by her only daughter, Melissa Markle Webster and her husband, Jim Webster, of Central City, Illinois. She has three grandchildren: Kayla Dunahee and her husband Darren, of Centralia, Illinois; Ian Thompson, of South Bend, Indiana and Madeline Webster, of Bloomington, Indiana; and three great grandchildren, Julian Collings, Kaleigh and Kairyn Dunahee. She is also survived by her brother John Bush and his wife Kay of Winter Springs, Florida; and her sister-in-law, the Reverend Ann Markle, of Buffalo, New York. She has several nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews. Finally, she is survived by a dear friend and caregiver in the last year of her life, Laci Sligar.
She was preceded in death by her parents, and a niece, Eleanor Ford.
Marthann was a retired university educator, beginning her career at Indiana State University in 1963, and leaving in 1965 with her pregnancy of her only daughter. She returned at the request of the university in 1966 and often said it was one of the best phone calls she ever received in her life.
Marthann invested her entire career as an educator. She opened her own dance and baton studio in 1955 as a 15 year-old sophomore in High School in Marshall on her parent’s front porch. Many young dancers were trained at her studios. While it went on hiatus while she finished her bachelor’s and master’s degree at Indiana State University, she opened it again in the late sixties and continued to educate dancers until the late seventies. She also founded the high school dance team, the Marshallettes, which perform still today.
This was good practice, because in 1959 Marthann founded the Sparkette Dance and Drill Team during her sophomore year at Indiana State University. The dance team continues today, almost sixty years later. She also founded a dance company during her tenure, and educated many young men and women in many athletic pursuits, as well preparing physical education and elementary school teachers for their lives as educators. Marthann taught many courses, but her first love was social and ballroom dancing. Each semester in her later years, her classes performed in a Sycamore Showcase. She also was an active partner in her Heirloom Photographic Services, a photography studio owned by her and her husband in Marshall.
However, Marthann’s proudest accomplishment was her marriage and her family. The loving couple remained married until Jim’s death in 2000, after 35 years of marriage. They were best friends and life partner’s in the most true sense of the word. They were rarely apart, in work or in play and took great pleasure in each other’s company: reading books aloud, watching movies, riding bikes and walking dogs, and camping.
Marthann was a singer, and a member of the National Champion American Legion Auxiliary Choir in Marshall. She was a proud founder in 1971 of the Epsilon Sigma Alpha Service Sorority, which remains today as the Marshall Service League.
