Darlene C. Brandt Obituary (1923 - 2016)

Darlene C. Brandt, 93, of Normal, Illinois died Thursday (April 14 2016) at Sugar Creek Alzheimer facility at 505 E. Vernon Ave, Normal, IllinoisrnA celebration of Her Life will be held for her friends at her residence at 25 Norbloom Ave. on Saturday April 23 from four to seven p.m. Survivors include her husband, William R. Brandt, her daughter Laura Clark and her husband, Lorenzo Krakowski of Yonkers, N. Y.; the members of her husbands family; Peter and Jan Brandt, Sam Brandt, Rachel Brandt and Dan Cunningham, all of Bloomington, Illinois; Julie Anderson Brandt, Emily Curry, Matt Curry and Vivienne Curry, all of Fayetteville, Arkansas; Eric A. Brandt of Charlottesville, Virginia; Meredith Howes, Chris Howes, Naomi Howes and Adam Howes of Texas. Darlene Arleta Charmian Rebhausen Clark Brandt was born on April 12, 1923 in Bancroft, Nebraska to George Rebhausen and Adah Hall. She had one sister, four years older, Georgette. When she was small, her family moved to Manhattan Beach, California, where her father bought a gas station in Watts (another part of Los Angeles) and worked at several other businesses; the regular income from this venture saw the family through the depression in good stead. Though her parents were only educated through the fifth and sixth grade, Darlene and her sister both went to college. Darlene attended Scripps College and graduated as valedictorian and Student Body President in 1944. She soon met and married John Lewis Clark, from Madison, Wisconsin, who was a Captain and flight instructor in the Air Force. After WW2 the couple moved to Palo Alto, California where John went to Stanford University and received a Ph.d. on the GI bill. They then moved to Buffalo, New York where both taught in the English Department at SUNY Buffalo, and then back to San Francisco, where John worked as a professor at San Francisco State College and Darlene worked as personnel director at Macys Department Store in downtown San Francisco. While there, the couple had a daughter, Laura, in 1957. In 1961 John was granted a Fullbright appointment at the university in Damascus, Syria, where the family lived for one year, and then he took a sabbatical year and they traveled in Europe. Afterwards, the family lived in San Francisco, where John was Chairman of the English Department, then the Drama Department, and Darlene founded and ran the Jewish Community Center nursery school. They then moved in 1968 to Santa Rosa, California, where John became Dean of Faculty at Sonoma State College, and Darlene designed and had built a beautiful house on five acres in the Santa Rosa hills. A year later the family moved to Bloomington, Illinois when John took over as Dean of Faculty of Illinois Wesleyan University, retired and became an emeritus professor. The family lived in the old Walker School building south of town. They had summered for many years in an isolated, one room cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin with no running water or electricity. Formidable in the woods, Darlene knew how to handle a two-man crosscut saw, and could trim trees on a ladder with a chainsaw. Darlene was predeceased by her husband in 1987, and married William Brandt, a lawyer, and long term Bloomington resident in 1988. The couple lived first in Bloomington for several years and in Normal since then, travelling extensively all over the world, and enjoying retirement together. Lively, witty, and a great reader, Darlene was a woman of strong, unique opinions and many talents. She always said that if she had been born later she would have been a lawyer; born before feminism was common, Darlene nevertheless spoke her mind and achieved many things. As teacher, professor, architect, and artist (she experimented with sculpture and painting), elegant in her own personal style and producer of wonderful dinner parties, she created a unique life for herself in two parts of the country with two families at a time when self determination was not always the purview of women. Darlene was most active in sports in Scripps College. She and her husband played tennis together into the later years. They stayed a number of winters in San Miguel, Mexico. They traveled to many countries in the Western Hemisphere. They had many trips in exciting places to see that were wonderful times with just the two of them together. She will be missed by all and most of all by Bill.