Gordon St. George Mark

Mark, Gordon St. George
Gordon St. George Mark, 79, died Friday, August 7, 2009 in a boat accident near his summer home on the coast of Nantucket. He is the grandson of Clayton Mark of Clayton Mark & Co. who was an early resident of Lake Forest, and son of Clarence Griffith Mark a co-inventor of pure instant coffee. His mother was Victoria Joyce of Ireland, whose family were the St. George's. Mr. Mark grew up in Morristown, NJ and graduated from Lawrenceville and Harvard. He began his career at Acme Steel and switched to brokerage banking, first at Macdonald and Co, and after several mergers retired from Morgan Stanley in 2000. He was married to Barbara Wedelstaedt for 47 years and sired Gordon Griffith, Christopher Wakeman (Mary) and their two children, Viviekn and Christina, Michael C. (Laura) and their two children, Caroline and Jaquelyn and Peter Clayton Mark. After Barbara's death in 2005, he married Martha Cray in 2007. Throughout his life he was an inveterate traveler. He was passionately involved in the Irish Georgian Society, spending a lifetime saving and safeguarding the 18th century architectural patrimony of Ireland. He was a descendant of the erudite Earls of St. George of County Galway, who left a lasting legacy of architectural refinement across the Irish landscape. The founder of the Irish Georgian Society, Desmond Guinness said, "Ireland's Treasures had no finer champion." Gordon spent his life building the local chapter and serving on the national board. He helped lead the Chicago affiliate from the 1960's up to the present, raising funds to restore the finest buildings in Ireland. He restored two rooms at Castletown House, a building of Allesandro Galilei's built in 1722, and left them his extensive collection of ancestral portraits. Visitation: 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, August 13, 2009 at Donnellan Funeral Home on Skokie Blvd, Skokie. Memorial Services are Friday the 14th at St. Augustines at 1140 Wilmette Ave., Wilmette, at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to Irish Georgian Society,115 East 89 Apt. 3B, New York, NY,10128 and North Shore Senior Center, 161 Northfield Rd., Northfield, IL, 60093.