The service will begin at 2 p.m. at the church, located at 215 East Mountain Street in Worcester, with music beginning at 1:30 p.m. No visitation hours will be observed.
Marks was a professor of cell biology, radiology and surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, where he taught since the school’s inception in 1970. He was a founder of the Department of Anatomy.
The son of Presbyterian missionaries, Marks was born November 16, 1937, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and spent part of his childhood in the former Belgian Congo where he graduated from high school. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, a D.D.S. from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He later received a Master’s Degree in Periodontology from Tufts University in Boston.
Marks was a member of more than 25 professional organizations, including being a founding member and former president of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. He served as American editor of the Journal of Clinical Anatomy for ten years. He also served on the editorial boards of Bone, The American Surgeon and The American Journal of Anatomy and served as one of three editors of The McMinn Atlas of Human Anatomy. He was the principle investigator on 16 research grants spanning more than 35 years and authored more than 270 scientific publications, research articles and textbooks covering a vast range of subjects including bone cell biology, anatomy, reconstructive oral and facial surgery for leprosy patients, biochemistry, endocrinology, biomechanics, tooth formation, hearing, genetics, growth and development, bone regeneration, the radiologic diagnosis of child abuse and death and dying with dignity.
His volunteer work included providing services at a free dental clinic in Worcester and serving on boards of directors for several nonprofit organizations. In 1985 he organized and participated in a trip to Nicaragua to help build a medical clinic. He was serving as Salem Covenant Church chair at the time of his death.
Marks is survived by Julia, his wife of 40 years; daughter Christine M. Anderson and son Sandy C. Marks III; son-in-law Jeffrey M. Anderson and daughter-in-law Lisa R. Marks; two grandsons, Erik Anderson and Luke Anderson; his father, Sandy C. Marks Sr. of Cary, North Carolina; brother Stuart Marks of Durham, North Carolina; and sister Katherine Sawyer of Normal, Illinois. Julia is the daughter of the late Sigurd and Ruth Westberg, former Covenant missionaries to Congo.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to a fund established in Marks’ name for medical education or to a memorial fund at Salem Covenant Church. Donations also may be directed to the Sandy C. Marks Jr. Medical Education Fund in care of Westborough Bank, P.O. Box 670, Westborough, MA, 01581.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
