Biography

Biography

Born in 1932 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mari Marks (born Marilyn Danna Marks) was the oldest of three children. Her father died in a fire when she was six, and her grief-stricken mother soon relocated them to Princeton, Illinois. Her mother agreed to marry a solicitous cousin to help make ends meet, but it was not a happy marriage. Marks spent her childhood helping to care for her younger brother and sister, striving to meet her mother’s high standards of behavior and academics. She remembers in a memoir that she was a sad and lonely child who found solace and soothing in the wild spaces surrounding her country home. She states: