Marcia Kathleen Wever (née Brown) passed away peacefully in Indianapolis on July 31st, two weeks before her 92nd birthday.

Marcia was born on August 13, 1934 to the late Everett Wohlfarth Brown and Evelyn Lyndal Brinkman in Charleston, Illinois. Two years later, her sister Marilyn was born.

Marcia and her sister had a wonderful childhood, and Charleston was a great town to grow up in. They couldn’t ask for better parents. Her dad served as mayor of Charleston from about 1945 to 1949. He never parked his car in the garage, so that they could turn their single-car garage into a playhouse. Their mother wallpapered it, and all the neighborhood kids would come over and play. Growing up, her best friend was Doris Tolle. She and Marilyn had lots of kittens.

She got her love of sports from her dad. Forever a Cardinals fan, Everett would take the family twice a summer to Saint Louis. They always stayed in the same hotel, The Chase, as the visiting team, and they would often run into the players in the elevator, everyone except for Jackie Robinson. The hotel would not house Black players, and she and Marilyn remembered that for the rest of their life.

Grammars, her mother, did not like sports of any kind, so she would be dropped off downtown at a department store while the three of them went to the Cardinals game. Their father received varsity letters in all four sports in high school (baseball, basketball, football and track). He just loved all sports, which he passed on to both of his girls. In grade school and high school, they would go to sporting events at UIUC—his alma mater, and Marcia’s future alma mater!

Marcia was a Girl Scout growing up. Her husband, Gene, could be caught decades later singing her troupe song, “Kay-ay-ay-cus, there’s nobody like us, we are the girls of Troupe 8!” Later on, she was the assistant leader of the girl scouts when Karen and Kathy were growing up.

She went to high school at the Laboratory School in Charleston (officially Eastern State High School), which was connected to Eastern Illinois University. They received a great education, and some of their teachers were college professors.

She attended Depauw University for two years and was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. She completed her final two years of college and graduated from UIUC in 1956 with a degree in Merchandising, what we would call business today. Her first job was with L.S. Ayres downtown where she was a buyer in the ladies department. She dressed well then and throughout her life.

After a few years, she went to work at Indiana Bell Telephone as a switch board operator. In 1974, she took a job at the Indianapolis Public Library where she remained for 22 years until her retirement in 1996.

After graduation, she was living in downtown Indianapolis with Shirley Shazer in a one-room apartment at the Essex House. She would walk to the L.S. Ayres building in high heels every morning, and didn’t think a thing of it. She thought she was living large in the big city! Gene was nearby in an apartment with Tom Sutherlin and Buddy Edwards. The two women (Marcia and Shirley) and the two men (Tom and Buddy) would get together and play cards, and Gene found out about the game and told them, “I would like to play!” The rest, as they say, is history.

She married Duard Eugene (Gene) Wever on May 23, 1959 in the Wesley United Methodist Church. She affectionately called him Dewey. Her eldest daughter, Karen, arrived in January of the next year.

They moved a lot for Gene’s work. He was employed as a used truck salesman for International Harvester. First to Bremen (where daughter Kathy was born in November of 1961), then Warsaw (for a couple of years), and Kokomo (for a few years), before finally returning to Indianapolis in 1968, where they have been ever since.

“Everybody likes something different, and that’s a good thing,” Marcia would say whenever she learned about a new hobby, a trend she didn’t quite understand, a style she wouldn’t have chosen herself, or just about anything that made her pause and wonder. Rather than judging it, she’d shrug, and remind herself—and all of us—that everybody likes something different. And that’s a good thing!

She loved sports, football and baseball, in that order. She and Gene would split season tickets to the Indianapolis Colts with a colleague of Gene’s for more than 10 years. Later on, she would split them with Tom and Kathy. She regularly attended home games into her late 80s. At home, Marcia was so into the Colts games that she was picky about who she watched them with—no distractions during the game!!

She and Gene would travel over to Cincinnati every summer to catch a Reds baseball game, often bringing along their daughters, and later, their grandkids and sometimes their grandkids' friends. Alicia and Graham have great memories from those trips, often getting to stay overnight in a hotel. Fancy!

In the 70s and early 80s, the family (she, Gene, Karen, and Kathy) would go downtown for many years to watch professional tennis as part of the RCA Championship. They also went to the Indianapolis 500 for many years (tickets from Gene’s work), sitting in the grandstand across from the pit.

She also enjoyed listening to music and attending concerts. She and Dewey would go down to French Lick, Indiana (at his urging) where they would often attend a concert from some of the late greats like Fats Domino and Chubby Checkers. She played piano for many years, and Kathy has fond memories of her playing Church in the Wildwood for the family. She crocheted, and she knit both Graham and Alicia a blanket that they cherish to this day.

Marcia had the purest, unconditional love for her family, and she kept the family together. She arranged a trip to Chicago every December for many years for everyone. Dinner at Joe’s Seafood, walking the windows at the department store Marshall Fields (with the mint chocolates!) and the big Christmast tree in the building, and a Broadway show each year. The family remembers these trips and shows fondly, from Wicked to Altar Boys to the Rockettes.

She never spent much on herself later in life. She had plenty of clothes, but she had her favorites, as we all do. One of her favorite pairs of pants had a broken zipper and a missing button. When asked by Kathy whether she wanted to have the pants repaired, she said, “No, I just pull my shirt down over it!” But she regularly donated to the church and to organizations that supported animal welfare and Native Americans, and she was quick to spend on her family.

For special occasions (birthdays, graduations, and sometimes just because), she treated the family to dinner. Her personal favorite was the filet mignon sliders at Harry & Izzy’s. She also had a sweet tooth, and her last meal was two Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Just the way she liked it.

Two bucket list items that she checked off with her family. The first was the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California (New Year’s Day 2019). The family toured all of the floats the night before, which was a special experience for all. And the second bucket list item was the NFL Superbowl in Miami (2020 San Francisco 49ers versus the Kansas City Chiefs). The family went to a tailgate before the game, which even had some Colts players in attendance. Karen got a picture with Kenny Moore II!

She enjoyed card games and board games with her kids and grandkids. These included pick-up sticks, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Rack-O, Wizard, Sorry!, euchre, Chinese checkers, and lots of Tripoley.

Beginning in the early 90s, the family went to General Butler State Park in Carrollton, Kentucky, always the first weekend of August. It was a choose-your-own-adventure trip, with some playing golf, some spending the day at the pool and in the game room, and others paddle boarding and playing mini golf. Marcia would play scrabble with Alicia late into the night while the adults went to the riverboat casino on Saturday night and paddleboarding on the lake (again Alicia and Grandma) in 100-degree weather. She would let Alicia and Graham buy one thing from the gift shop. Alicia remembers always getting a new stuffed animal but being tortured by which one to choose, but grandma was ever patient!

She and Gene loved to travel. They traveled to Germany, Denmark, and Sweden in August of 1985, to see where Gene was stationed during the Korean War (Bamberg) and where her ancestors lived in Germany. Many years later, in 2016, she took Karen and Kathy to the UK to watch the Indianapolis Colts play in London for the first time (for football, what else?!). High tea at Kensington Palace and visiting Windsor Castle were two of the big highlights. Karen and Marcia went back in 2017 and took the Chunnel to Paris where they met Kathy.

She was an animal lover, and cats were the best. She never went more than a year or two without having a cat by her side. In order of appearance: Sugar (Old Mrs. Kitty), Matilda (Baby), Bailey (Bailey Boy), Joey, and finally Hazel (Little Miss Hazel). Hazel was a barn cat that found her way to Marcia’s lap, and the two have been inseparable for the past five years. While in hospice care at Methodist Hospital, Hazel came and visited, sitting faithfully on her lap for hours at a time, occasionally pawing her arm gently to let her know she was there.

She and Gene would snowbird in Siesta Key, Florida for many years, staying at Peppertree Bay. They spent 8 weeks or so every winter. Friends (the Briney’s and Chestnut’s, from Gene’s time at Indiana Business College) would play poker all night together. And of course family (their kids Karen and Kathy and later grandkids, along with Gene’s sister Joyce) came to visit each winter too. They kept a calendar of all the comings and goings, a who’s who of their friends and family. They were busier than ever in Siesta Key, and they loved it. Marcia enjoyed a cocktail on the beach for each sunset. And for many years, they took their bicycles and rode around the town. They loved to go out to eat at Phillippi Creek Oyster Bar and visit St. Armands Circle, Herrmann's Royal Lipizzan Stallions, and catch the Cincinnati Reds in Sarasota and New York Yankees in Tampa during spring training.

She was a lifelong, avid reader, mostly mysteries and thrillers. It was a hobby she picked up from her parents (her dad liked history and her mom liked mysteries). She was raised in the library, where she worked for many years at the Indianapolis Public Library, the Lawrence and Warren branches. She wouldn’t buy books—she would go to the library. She even kept a list of every book she ever read.

She saw a lot of change in her lifetime, from air conditioning to refrigerators, and finally personal computers and cell phones. She would email with friends and family regularly, and of course put in her NFL Survivor pick each week—never the Steelers because they let her down one too many times!

Faith was very important to her. Never evangelical or arrogant, it was a quiet and lifelong faith that she passed on to Karen and Kathy. She attended Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church ever since moving to the north side of Indy in 1993. While her husband described himself as an “E and Cer” (Easter and Christmas), she never missed Sunday service. The COVID pandemic arrived when Marcia was 85, and she (she and Cat, to be precise) continued to watch online, each and every Sunday until just a few weeks ago. Marcia served as the sponsor for both Graham and Alicia’s confirmation into the church in 2001 and 2005, respectively.

Each time Saint Luke’s would begin the search for a new head pastor, she would say I don’t think he can be replaced, beginning with Reverend Carver McGrith. And each time, first with Reverend Kent Millard and later with Reverend Rob Fuquay, she would happily report that the church somehow managed to surprise her with a minister that she loves just as much as the previous one.

The family enjoyed the candlelight service every Christmas Eve at St. Luke’s, with Grandma cooking up her tasty lasagna and garlic bread (or Texas toast!) before church. After the service, we would head back to her home to open up just one present on Christmas Eve before bed. Life was grand.

She got her hair done every Thursday—every Thursday!—for many years by Joe who ran Dimensions at 62nd and Allisonville (Hair Joe, to those in the know). She would always come back with the latest gossip from around town that Joe picked up (Payton sold his Indianapolis home, you have got to be kidding me).

She and Gene attended all of her grandkids’ sporting events from softball to baseball to basketball. Marcia kept coming to Alicia’s cross country meets despite the fact that Gene refused to go because he thought everyone looked like they would get sick.

She remembered the little details about people’s lives. If you mentioned one of your friends to her, she would immediately say, “Oh, he’s the one who lives in Denver,” or, “Isn’t that the wedding you went to in Michigan a couple of years ago?” If they told her about upcoming plans, she would remember to ask us about them the next time they spoke. It made you feel like whatever you told her mattered.

Seeing that change over the last couple of years was hard for all of us, but it was hardest for her.

A week after entering hospice, she passed away peacefully at Methodist Hospital on July 31st. She was surrounded by loved ones and well taken care of by the nurses on the comfort care unit.

She is preceded in death by her mother Evelyn, father Everett, husband Gene, and son-in-law Thomas (Tom) Erwin. She is survived by her children, Karen Wever and Kathy Erwin (Wever), grandchildren Alicia Erwin and Graham Erwin, and sister Marilyn Jardine (Brown).

The funeral service will be performed by family friend Reverend Gale Stutz on Friday, August 7, 2026 at Flanner Buchanan – Oaklawn Memorial Gardens (9700 Allisonville Road). Visitation will be from 2–3 pm, and the funeral will be at 3 pm. 

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation (where she worked and frequented) or to Indianapolis Animal Care Services.

To give a monetary donation to Indianapolis Animal Care Services, click HERE

If you give to the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation in memory of Marcia Wever, donations will go toward a permanent book tile in her memory at the Glendale Library, and the money will be used by the foundation to benefit all Marion County Public Library patrons. 75% of the public library programs are funded by the Foundation. Donations to the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation can be made by clicking HERE.