Dr. Markle Karlen

June 20, 1924 - September 25, 2019

Dr. Markle Karlen, 95, of Minneapolis, died peacefully in his sleep September 25, 2019 of natural causes. He’d fallen asleep reading the latest issue of The National Geographic, with a cover story titled “The Last of its Kind,” which could be Markle’s epitaph. Whether as a physician, family man, fisherman, or friend, he grabbed life to the end and made it his joyful own. Preceded in death by his beloved wife of 53 years Charlotte; sisters, Temmie Bureloff and Rose Rosove; son, Bruce; and Roz Baker, his cherished companion of 12 years. He is survived by his daughter, Bonnie, Minneapolis; son, Neal, Minneapolis; brother-in-law, Harvey Katz, St. Louis Park, MN; nephew, Sherman Rosove (Elaine), Sherman Oaks, CA; nieces, Sandra Marker (Howard), Scottsdale, AZ, Deborah Brandys (Henry), St. Paul, MN, Sandra Wildermuth (David), Downer’s Grove, IL, Marsha Millikan (Mark), Carmel, IN; and nephew, Michael Katz (Jennifer), Prior Lake, MN; and the mishpocha, Judith Amdur, David Amdur, Gary Jackson, Lynn Wadsworth, Zara Amdur, and until the end his treasured special friend Shelley Segal, and her children Beth, Ira, Wendy, Leslie, and Brad. The son of peasants, Markle graduated Minneapolis’s North High at 15, and by 22 was a graduate of the University of Minnesota and their medical school, as well as an Army captain overseeing a leper colony in Yokohama, Japan. A proud army man for seven years, through his residency at the Mayo Clinic and beginning of a private practice, Markle was as comfortable ice fishing in a snowmobile suit as wearing a tuxedo to the opera. His high profile duties stretched from ministering to the old Minneapolis Lakers basketball team to serving as official Minnesota Orchestra doctor, but his heart lay in being a “people” doctor, family man, and an angler known forever to his blood-brother fishing buddies as “Doc.” A lifelong Yiddishist, memorials preferred to the Minneapolis Jewish Community Center’s Yiddish “Vinkl,” or to the Yiddish Book Center, 1021 West St., Amherst, MA 01002. Funeral service FRIDAY, SEPT. 27th, 2019, 2:00pm, BETH EL SYNAGOGUE, 5225 Barry St. W., St. Louis Park. SHIVA: Beth El Synagogue (Saturday 8:00pm).