Marcia Menefee Purdy

To Marcia...the most beautiful person I know... lover of family, kitties, books, dancing, ISU and dark purple lilac bushes.... She is an Iowa girl. The daughter of Bob and Ruth Menefee she was born and raised on a farm near Fontanelle in southwest Iowa. She is the middle of five children. I believe the values and principles which she prizes were shaped during those first eighteen years which she spent with family friends and neighbors near a small country church known as Avondale.

It was here that she developed her love for the outdoors for animals for people and for quiet times alone. Although she appreciates many of life's simple pleasures Marcia is a very complex person. She is keenly aware of everything going on around her. A wonderful combination of intelligence pride excitement and love she is one of the few people I have known who has managed to balance all of the necessary ingredients needed to successfully carry out each of the roles which she fills -- wife mother daughter sister and friend. Most people like Marcia. Anyone who truly knows her loves her. As a friend she is crazy she is caring she is supportive and she is completely unpretentious. What you see is what you get ... actually you get more.

Marcia will be there to listen to discuss to debate to defend. She possesses a certain fire -- a defiance -- which over the years she has honed to perfection. Her epitaph will likely read "You Were Not the Boss of Me." With this fire she questions ... she protects ... she celebrates ... she loves. I believe one of the things that attracts people to Marcia is her honesty. While you may not always agree with her you always know where you stand. Most of us appreciate that. Marcia is the mother of our three children -- Jeremy Joshua and Hannah. There is nothing she wouldn't do for any of them... or for me.

She has proven this many times having sacrificed her own dreams to help us achieve ours. She worked to put me through school sacrificing her own education in the process. Before she is finished she will most assuredly have financed all of our children's education. She has encouraged taught coached and praised. Marcia is probably the most giving person I know. I have known Marcia for about thirty-three years. She is an exciting person -- full of life itself. We will have been married twenty-three years this August.

Given the choice I would do it all over again without hesitation. It is an ongoing adventure. There has been good and bad happy and sad. But it has always been "us". And that's all we really care about. We are parents partners lovers soul mates. She is my best friend. Marcia..... to know her.....is a blessing to understand her.....is a challenge to love her is natural Marsh I can't think of a more appropriate way to acknowledge you than through the Plaza of Heroines. To those of us who truly know you you have been and always will be that.

-Randy

3/1/95