Cricket Marley

Charlene “Cricket” Marley, 95, of Plantation, FL, passed away December 30, 2019. Born in Maryville, Missouri on December 15, 1924, and graduated from Maryville High School and attended Iowa State University.

Cricket met and married John E. Marley “Jack” in college, and they were married on June 19^th, 1944. They lived on Alamogordo Air Base in New Mexico, until the end of World War II.  Living in Chicago, Jack learned radio repair and was the pioneer of television in his home town of Bedford, Iowa.  In 1957 they moved to Fort Lauderdale to escape the cold winter.  They were in the wholesale costume jewelry business for 20 years and also rented apartments. In 1983, they retired.

Cricket and Jack enjoyed traveling with their trailer, seeing 49 states, and enjoyed several trips to Europe. After Jack passed away in 2007, she moved to Covenant Village of Florida, where she made many friends; she especially enjoyed working jigsaw puzzles with her friends. Cricket was a 75-year member of Sigma Kappa Sorority at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. She was a founding member of Violet Volunteers at Broward Nursing Home.

Cricket is survived by her son, David Marley and his wife Sue of Port St. Joe, FL; daughter, Cathy Welky and her husband Larry of Fort Lauderdale; five grandchildren, Jay Marley of Tampa, Carolyn and her husband Randolph, Robert, James and his wife Sulky, and Charles; two great-grandsons, William and Andrew. She is preceded in death by her husband, Jack in 2007, her eldest son, John in 2006, and her daughter-in-law, Nook (Johns wife), in 2016.

Visitation will be Monday, January 6, from 10:00 AM-11:00 AM, at Covenant Village with funeral services at 11:00 AM. Interment will follow at Lauderdale Memorial Park.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her loving memory to “Samaritan’s Purse International Relief”. Arrangements entrusted to T. M. Ralph Plantation Funeral Home, 7001 NW 4^th Street, Plantation, FL 33317 (954) 587-6888 tmralph.com