First president of Arlington Hts. League of Women Voters 'got things done'

Members of the League of Women Voters in Arlington Heights are mourning the death of their first president and longest registered member.

Joyce Marks was the first "leaguer" to become a 50-year member, in 2005. She remained active in the organization in the decade since and had hoped to attend the league's annual dinner coming up on May 21.

Marks died April 30. The Arlington Heights resident was 90.

At first glance, Marks hardly would have fit the description of a league activist. Small in stature and with a winsome British accent, she was quiet, retiring and never sought the limelight, colleagues said.

"She was very active and committed to the league," said Pat Lindner of Arlington Heights. "She got things done."

Marks grew up outside London and came to this country as a war bride after World War II. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen and grew to love her new country and her constitutional right to vote, family members said.

"Her philosophy was not to push her opinion on anyone, but she wanted to give voters the opportunity to be educated about the candidates and the issues," said her daughter Peggy Kocian of Wilmette.

Marks and her husband, Fred, moved to Arlington Heights in 1952. Within two years she would be part of a group of women who would apply to the state and national League of Women Voters to start a local chapter.

Before doing so, they were told they needed to conduct a study of the structure of the village and its history and to publish those results in a booklet called "Know Your Town."

The Arlington Heights chapter was sanctioned in 1955. It now serves residents in Mount Prospect and Buffalo Grove, as well as Elk Grove Village, Prospect Heights and Wheeling.

Marks was elected the group's first president, and she led 125 women at the time, current members say. From the start, the nonpartisan group followed the guidelines of the National League of Women Voters, including studying issues and developing consensus positions, holding voter registration days and hosting candidate forums.

Lindner recalls that during the early years, the group assigned observers to attend village board and plan commission meetings. Members also studied position papers published by the national organization on national and international events.

"I always considered her a role model, as a woman who was involved in the community all the way through her later years, and she passed that legacy on to those of us who followed in her footsteps in the league," Arlington Heights Village Trustee Robin LaBedz said.

Marks and her husband raised two daughters in Arlington Heights. For much of that time she served as an administrative secretary for Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, and later at Berkeley School.

But she always found time for volunteering. She was a member of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program and was recognized as a finalist in its 2007 Caring Hearts awards program.

Marks also volunteered with the Read To Learn program at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library and spent 10 years as an advocate for the VOR organization for the developmentally disabled in Rolling Meadows.

Marks was preceded in death by her husband in 1997. Besides Kocian, she is survived by another daughter, Bonnie Sommer-Kemper of Germany, as well as four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will take place at 6 p.m. Friday, May 8, at the Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist, 1025 N. Smith St. in Palatine.