Alice Cordelia Marra English (“Babe”), a Kansas City girl from the “Show Me State,” passed Saturday June 27, 2020, just short of her 90th birthday, Aug. 6. A “cold-hands, warm-heart” lady whose life touched hundreds: As a wife to husband Terry for 63 years and a mother who raised three daughters, Mara Joyce, Lisa Marie and Angela Rose, leaving them with a lifetime of fond memories, joyous experiences, each with individual personalities and talents; As a compulsive volunteer, she was actively involved with the old St. Gerard School Home and School Association, coached girls’ volleyball, softball, and basketball teams in the Catholic Schools Athletic League and served week-daily at the Sippy Stand during recess. As an intensely competitive athlete who played with BREC slow-pitch softball, volleyball, and pickleball teams as “Miss Alice” or “Babe,” a nickname given by her brothers playing pickup baseball on Spruce Avenue in her Kansas City neighborhood; As a competitor and volunteer with Louisiana Senior Olympics participating in many sports, including slow-pitch softball (Her 70+ “Cajun Belles” team won National Gold), swimming, basketball, shot put, javelin, pickleball, winning enough medals and ribbons to decorate a Christmas tree; As 2002 “Senior Olympian of the Year,” she was Inducted into the 2007 LSOG “Hall of Fame” and won the LSOG “Athlete of the Year” in 2012”. (With the late Bob Keller paired as the “Sts. Peter and Paul of Pickleball”, introducing the oddly named sport to Baton Rouge). As a talented and creative seamstress, who loved sewing for other people at 1950’s prices, making Barbie Doll clothes, dressing dolls for little girls, outfitting her daughters from childhood to wedding day, all the while inspiring third daughter, Angie, who inherited her sewing talent and athleticism to open in 1989 a business, Gee’s Aerobics and Activewear, where she worked for many years; instilling in first-daughter Mara a knack for crafts which she markets on the internet and craft shows; with middle daughter Lisa inheriting “.05 percent” of her mother’s athleticism but 99.95 percent of her brother Mike’s laid-back personality and comical outlook on life; And, as an amateur artist whose oil paintings hang in a church offices and others’ homes and businesses. “Babe” (She hated the name “Cordelia”) attended Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School in Kansas City, but transferred to nearby Northeast High Public School because they had a sports program and a swimming pool, excelling in basketball, high-platform diving, swimming, baseball and field hockey, graduating in 1948.
Preceded in death by her parents Anthony James and Joyce Mauldin Marra; siblings Mary Ann, Vincent, Anthony, Jr. (Pud), Michael and Natalie. Survived by her husband Philip Terence, daughters Mara, Angela, and Lisa of Baton Rouge, and Dolores (Mike) Marra, Kansas City; Wake held at Rabenhorst Funeral Home East on Tuesday, June 30. Wednesday July 1 Funeral Mass held at St. John Vianney, Baton Rouge, LA.