If you were in the Pontiac, Illinois K-Mart in the 1970s and 80s you probably heard Marcia Hendrickson’s voice calling out the daily Blue Light Special with a trace of giggle - “Folks it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

Probably born a smart-ass on All Saints’ Day in Alameda, California, Marcia’s father quickly turned her into a full-fledged military brat moving to the dense green of Blaine, Washington where snow-capped Mount Baker became her earliest memories. She was then moved to Biloxi, Mississippi cementing a love affair with the natural world with her Huck Finn to her half-sister Daisy’s Tom Sawyer. Days were spent fishing, hunting crawdads and pushing back against the patriarchy by scaring their brothers with dead garden snakes. She next moved to her grandmother Ollie’s working farm in Springfield, Arkansas. It’s here she named and befriended all of the animals, rose at dawn to milk cows and collect eggs, and spent most of her time with her favorite ducks Peepers and Quackers. Until she passed, upon seeing any roadkill Marcia would exclaim Poor Squirrel or Bird or Possum! (However, this didn’t preclude her from enjoying a good steak now and then, to which she’d exclaim Poor Cow!)

FUN FACT: 10 days before Marcia passed away, she landed two largemouth bass in quick order on the shores of Falls Lake, North Carolina.

Now, if you worked at the Motorola factory in Pontiac, Illinois in the late 60s you may also know Marcia as Miss Motorola where she worked on the factory floor packaging Color Television tubes. She settled in Pontiac, wed Pete Hetman and gave birth to her two daughters, Mindy and Marisha. Soon after Marisha was born she and Pete divorced, and she took a cashier’s job at K-Mart. She was now a single mother of two young girls in 1979 in Pontiac, Illinois. While raising her daughters, Marcia sewed their clothing and had garage sales to fund family vacation and cooked bacon and pancakes during their weekly ritual of watching Soul Train and dancing the party line in pajamas in their small house on the edge of a corn field.

FUN FACT: Marcia was almost shot by a deputy sheriff one Halloween when she walked up behind him in a gorilla suit and tapped him on the shoulder.

In their small neighborhood, at dusk, you often heard Marcia’s voice calling the family cat back home “Taxi! Taaaxiiiii!” She always made a homemade cake for Mindy and Mish’s birthdays and created and hand sewed all of their Halloween costumes. Marcia’s 2012 W-2 for her last year at the Pontiac K-Mart Department Store, where she had worked for 37 years, was 20,059 dollars and zero cents.

FUN FACT: Marcia loved the idea of finding doubloons while walking on one of her favorite Florida beaches.

Marcia eventually moved to North Carolina to be closer to her daughters, and took up residence with a kitten they all rescued from a drain pipe. In her sixties, her creative nature led to art classes at Duke University, and she began creating impressive watercolor still lifes and portraits at speed, leaving a stack of over 50 paintings upon her death.

FUN FACT: Marcia loved to read the menu aloud to everyone on the way to restaurants, adding her own commentary and excitement into the mix, “ooooh, fresh shrimp.”

Marcia was someone who learned to turn her pain into kindness, and was always there to offer a kind word, or hand to anyone who needed help or comfort. She was a lover of everything living - from plants to animals to people - her deadpan wit and infectious laugh will be missed. She leaves behind the jewels of her eye, Mindy and Marisha, and her beloved 13 year-old rescue cat Rexford.

There will be a private service for immediate family only. In lieu of flowers, please donate to your local animal shelter.