GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Triad community is bidding farewell to a hometown hero, who served his country and community for decades.
The family of Edgar Marks, MD, confirmed he passed away peacefully at home June 9 at age 101.
Marks was a fixture in several WFMY News 2 veterans stories over the years and lived a remarkable life.
He was a longtime internal medicine doctor for Cone Health, one of the original physicians at Moses Cone Hospital when it opened in 1953.
Before then, in 1946, he served as the director of public health and welfare for the U.S. military government in what would become South Korea ('Republic of Korea'). Between wars, Korea was a largely-impoverished country where millions of people did not have access to ample health care or medical facilities.
But, perhaps Marks' most vivid and emotional memories involve World War II. WFMY News 2's Meghann Mollerus talked with him about it in a 2019 interview.
"December 7, 1941 -- I was in a car and hitchhiking from Greensboro to Durham to Duke. When we got to Duke, we didn't have a radio on. Fellows were running around like crazy, and that's when I found out there was Pearl Harbor. We went in at that time almost immediately and enlisted," he recalled.
At that time, Marks was finishing up his undergraduate degree at Duke University and starting medical school at Wake Forest University (Bowman Gray). The atomic bomb dropped on Japan right before the U.S. Army sent medical students into combat.
But, Marks' best friend and Greensboro high school classmate -- Sigmund Pearl -- died in action.
“I received a letter from him in March of 1945, which told me what he was doing. He said, ‘Do not tell my parents,’ because his job was to go out into battle and bring in the dead. And, apparently, he was already dead, when I got the letter,” Marks said.
The letter had special instructions.
“He said, ‘You stay there, because I’m gonna need you.’ (I) still cry," he admitted.
Since then, Marks made a mission of honoring Pearl's legacy at the Pearl Memorial Fieldhouse at what is now Grimsley High School.
Marks was a husband to Annemarie, father and grandfather and loved his family dearly.
In lieu of flowers, Marks' family is asking for memorials to Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, where Marks was a lifelong member.