17 Wrightsville Beach Starlet The Baby Dehler Story By JAMIE PENN Photographs courtesy of KIM LEFLER Katherine Dehler Marks was said to be beyond beautiful. The 42 men who pleaded for her hand in marriage professed it; pageants, Azalea Festival parades, magazines and www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM newspapers flaunted it; her daughters were in awe of it; and old photographs shout it. Her unique beauty was obvious, undeniable, and at times, for her, unbearable. But, of course, there was more to her striking appearance than physi-cal beauty. Underlying it all was something that people can’t seem to fully describe. It was her essence, her daughters Kim Lefler and Chris Suit say, that gave her physical beauty foundation and definition. Born on August 7, 1924, in Charleston, South Carolina, Marks moved to Wilmington with her family from Washington, DC, to be closer to her grandmother, Julia Akel, owner of The Julia Dress Shop which originally opened on Front Street in downtown Wilmington. George Saffo of Harbor Island, 89, a long-time friend who claims Marks as his first love, vividly remembers her then, known as Baby Dehler. He recalls her walking the length of the block next to cobblestone streets. His father owned Saffo’s Restaurant, a few buildings away from The Julia. He says it seemed that she could not only stop traffic, but that she could stop time. “When she walked by, I knew it, not because I saw her, but because everyone on the block was suddenly mesmerized,” Saffo says. “When I’d turn to look, she looked as though she was floating by. There was just something about her that can’t be explained.” Undoubtedly, it was her glowing green eyes, her olive skin, her long, thick brown hair, her perfect curves and flawless features that spellbound the suitors. But, it was that certain je ne sais quoi that drew the suitors. Proposals from Alex Trask, John Coddington (former North Carolina senator) and Robert Bellamy, to name a few, are tucked away in a scrapbook among various memorabilia. Decades younger, distant cousin and good friend, Norman Akel, said it was her fierce independence coupled with her generous spirit and openness that made her so magnetic. “She was very enthusiastic, very loving. She loved life,” Akel says. A 1943 photo taken at Buckingham Studio in Washington, DC, when Katherine “Baby” Dehler Marks was 18 years old, was given to her mother as a gift. beachbites
Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014
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