Marilyn Jo "MJ" Markle

Marilyn Jo (“MJ”) Markle, born in wintry Gary, Indiana, would spend her life loving sunshine, even while settling for fifty years in less-than-tropical Chicago. Everyone who knew her at any point in her life would agree that she was a tornado of energy, fascinated with circus acts----the trapeze was a favorite----and juggling, with board games (God forbid she lose!), tennis and canoeing. She had a whimsical wit and loved to laugh even more than she loved baking or creating fanciful Jello assemblies. A talented, painstaking professional artist, she showed her creativity early, winning an award in high school for writing one of the best poems in the state of Indiana that year. After earning a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa key for academic achievement and graduating from Indiana University with a BFA, she developed a successful graphic design company based in Chicago, Marilyn Markle Design. Highlights of her career included top assignments with trade and business associations, national organizations in the furnishings industries, and start-ups and Fortune 500 firms in the corporate sector. Her vision and dedication shone in the monthly magazines, annual reports, and event marketing materials she developed over more than 40 years. Invariably short on time and on budget, plagued by deadlines decision-makers forgot to share, more insightful about business issues than many corporate types expected from “a graphic designer,” she became an industry legend for her work ethic and perfectionism. Marilyn married medical professional Nick King, a lifelong Chicagoan, in 1995, on a Lake Michigan sightseeing ship out of Chicago's Navy Pier. The pair enjoyed Chicago while catching sunshine whenever they could at Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin and St. Pete Beach, Florida. At their home on Chicago's Near-North Side, Marilyn and Nick pampered their beloved cats (most recently Ziggy and Widget, kitten Widget growing into America's largest domestic cat), watched a finch family's annual return to nest on their front porch, and picked sour cherries for pie from Nick's prized backyard fruit trees. Marilyn loved to read, especially Stephen King's short stories, and wrestled successfully with Sudoku and The New York Times' spelling bee. A movie fan with wide-ranging tastes, Marilyn's favorites included the bloody historical drama Zulu, the sweet original Swiss Family Robinson and the witty classic Arsenic and Old Lace. A few years ago, she took up the ukelele with the same enthusiastic passion she brought to everything that interested her. If it could make her laugh and give her something to wrap her clever mind around, she would be an avid fan. As one of her many friends said, “Her heart was as big as her brain.” Opinionated, intelligent, fun-loving, passionate, energetic, determined, sensitive: Marilyn was a remarkable woman, lost to her friends and family too early. No one was ready for her to go, she herself least of all. She loved life, and we loved her. Marilyn is survived by her husband of twenty-nine years, by her three sisters (Alana Markle of Santa Fe, New Mexico and Bonnie Markle and Karen Markle Knab, both of Asheville, North Carolina), her brother-in-law Thomas Gonzales of Santa Fe, her sister-in-law Sophia Varcados of DeKalb and her niece Zoe Markle of Chicago. A memorial is being planned for a later date.

Marilyn Jo "MJ" Markle

November 10, 1951 - April 27, 2024