Bainbridge resident Mary Adeline Merker, age 83, died March 19 at Messenger House Care Center on Bainbridge Island.

She was born March 29, 1920 in East St. Louis, Ill., the daughter of Alfred and Nellie Mae (Humphries) Jordan.

She graduated from Bloom Township High School in Chicago Heights, Ill., and married George E. Merker, Jr. in Portland, Ore., on March 5, 1943.

They settled in the Chicago area after the war and remained there until they moved to Bloomington, Ill., in 1960 where they lived until Mr. Merker’s death in 1976.

In 1977, Mary moved to Issaquah and then lived in Bellevue and Kirkland, until moving to Bainbridge Island in 1995.

During her work career she was employed as an executive secretary at H.D. Fowler Co. in Bellevue; Biddle Advertising in Bloomington, Ill.; Illinois State University, mathematics department in Normal, Ill.; and at the Bloomington Normal Airport Authority.

Prior to the birth of her son, she worked as an executive secretary for the Legal Department of the Illinois Agricultural Association in Chicago where she met her husband. She was chair of the U.S. Power Squadrons Women’s Auxiliary, District 20.

She is survived by one son, George E. Merker and his wife Mary Brzezinski-Merker, their daughter Emily, all of Bainbridge Island; one brother, Harry Jordan, of Hondo, Texas, and a sister, Helen Swanson, of Asheville, N.C. She was preceded in death by one brother, Alfred, one sister, Ruth, and her parents.

Inurnment will be April 8 at Park Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Ill. In lieu of flowers, tax-deductible contributions should be made in her memory to Research to Prevent Blindness, www.rpbusa.org.

Arrangements are under the direction of Kass Funeral Home.