A Death in the (Almost) Family

We had some terrible news last week. My uncle Sam's niece Marcia died on Wednesday. Marcia was not officially related to me (my uncle being the husband of my mother's sister), but we treated each other as if we were. Marcia was a retired professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Tennessee and, over the years, a fairly regular visitor to Washington, and often a house guest. She was in her early 60s, not married, and had no children. She continued to live in Knoxville after she left teaching.

Marcia's two brothers live in Indianapolis and she had told my wife via email last week that she was going there for a short vacation. She had driven her sister to Kokomo for the day, and was on her way to Lafayette for a short visit to her alma mater Purdue, when her car veered off the highway into a wall. It is thought that she may have had a heart attack or stroke, and been unconcious at the time, although we will never know for sure. There was no sign that she was swerving to avoid something, or that she tried to pull her car back on course.

Her funeral is in Chicago on Monday, where her parents are buried. Her Indianapolis family and Chicago family will be there; her St. Louis family will not be able to make it. At the time of her death, one of her brothers was in Japan on business and had to take the double red-eye back, while her nephew, who is in the Secret Service, had to take an emergency flight back from New Delhi, where he was with the president's travel party.

She leaves behind a lot of memories, as well as a DeLorean, which she won several years ago at a UT raffle. This is not the way it was supposed to end. She will be missed.