19 www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM Dehler finally said yes, at the age of 34, to Morton Marks, a Naval Academy graduate. The couple met during a dance at the academy and were subsequently married there. Her husband’s position at the Pentagon took her away from her family and her dreamy youth to Fairfax, Virginia, where the newlyweds started a family. “Mom was a devout Christian, raised us three children in church, as Christians,” Lefler says. Her mother moved back to Wilmington in 1977 where she was already a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal on Market Street. In 1980, she joined St. Andrews on the Sound and served for more than ten years on its altar committee. But it was motherhood that allowed Dehler to express the full range of her love. “The love she was shown was immeasurable. All the doting and affection from men. Her father doted on her. Her grandmother doted on her,” Lefler says. “And she transferred all that love to us. She was the epitome of unconditional love.” Later in life she would carry that love and support to her five grandchildren. Her daughter, Chris, says Grandma became her favorite title. “She may have been Baby Dehler in her younger days, but she loved being called Grandma Kathy, which she told my son, Ryan, in one of their last conver-sations,” Suit says. She says that her mother’s essence revealed itself in her handwriting. She was urged by her grandmother to study Spencerian script (American cursive), and mastered it as she would everything she tried. “It was beautiful and flowing with plenty of flourishes like her personality,” Suit says. Katherine Dehler Marks lived in her home in Wilmington up until March 14, 2014, when she was taken to New Hanover Regional Medical Center where she died of a blood infection on March 16. Her two daughters and five grandchildren survive her. Above: Images of Katherine Dehler, the erstwhile Hollywood starlet, paved the way for her official screen test, from above left: by Peter L. Knight Jr., Ankers Photography and an unknown photographer. Left: Katherine Dehler models on Gold Tony, a famous Western films horse.
Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014
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