Alice was loved and adored by family, friends, caregivers, and pets. 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.Īlice spent time with her daughter, Melissa, and family and friends at her home near Rochelle, and in Edmonds, WA, with her daughter, Heather, and family. Her experience and interest resulted in her laying groundwork for a national historic trail for the U.S. Air Mail and was a member of the Air Mail Pioneers, comprised mainly of former Air Mail pilots. In aviation history, she worked to preserve the history of U.S. She was subsequently appointed as a director of the Illinois Tollway Commission, the only woman at the time on any U.S. While fighting to protect local farmland from the E-W Tollway (now I-88), she became involved in local and state politics. She was a founding member of the Flagg Township Historical Society and Rochelle League of Women Voters.
Through her art business, the “Little Red Hen Art Workshop and Press,” she illustrated books, designed greeting cards, and produced beautiful paper dolls. She taught nine years in the Rochelle elementary schools. Hank and Alice raised a son, Michael, and two daughters, Heather and Melissa, adjacent to the airport in Rochelle, IL.Īlice had four careers: teacher, artist, community activist, and aviation historian. 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. After Henry and Alice married in 1943, she traveled with him to air bases around the United States. One of the local pilots she met at the airport in Waterman was Henry Marks, who joined the Army Air Corps in 1942. 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. The band accompanied a float her father built depicting a battleship he christened the “U.S.S. Though small of stature, Alice played the Sousaphone and bugle as well as singing and dancing with her siblings. 30 intersection, her parents formed the “Eakle Family Band,” a marching band and dance troupe comprised of Alice and her seven younger siblings. During the Great Depression, while living at the airport on the NW corner of IL 23 & U.S.
Weather Bureau at the emergency airport in Waterman. As a teenager, she worked as a weather observer for the U.S. 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.įrom the late 1920’s through the 1930’s, she met many famous pilots flying in the early years of Transcontinental Air Mail Service (New York to San Francisco route). Starting in 1924, she grew up on emergency air mail landing fields (airports) near Waterman, IL, managed by her parents, sparking a lifelong love of aviation and atmospheric science. Eakle while her father earned a pharmacy degree. The first of eight children, Alice was born in Des Moines, IA on May 2, 1921, to Mary (Mercer) and Paul V. 12, 2017, at her daughter’s home in Edmonds, WA. Alice Eakle Marks, aviation historian, artist, and community activist, died Dec.
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