Victim of Flight 103: Her Causes Still Live

Elizabeth Marek’s presence on doomed Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded Dec. 21 over Scotland, had nothing to do with her political activism.

The 30-year-old Venice actress and singer, who was returning home from a vacation, never intended to become a martyr for the peace movement.

Nonetheless, about 200 friends and family members who attended a memorial service Sunday in Santa Monica’s Church in Ocean Park hoped the peace activist’s death would account for more than just another tally in the roll call of terrorism’s innocent victims.

That is why those at the ceremony signed and attached ribbons to a “peace wreath” in Marek’s honor. The plan is to hang the wreath from a fence at a Nevada nuclear test site next April. Halting nuclear testing was a cause Marek championed, friends said.

Some activists termed Marek’s death sadly ironic--one more example, said one, of the need “for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to join together to stop terrorism and find nonviolent solutions to the world’s problems.”

Others talked of continuing Marek’s work for nuclear disarmament--unilateral or otherwise--and laboring “to end oppression against all people.”

Marek’s efforts toward these goals had included the 1987 march on Washington by gay and lesbian activists, a Florida march to protest a Cape Canaveral missile site and the 1988 California State Peace March from the U.S.-Mexico border to San Francisco.

This work--as well as her acting, singing and directing credits--were traced in blue icing across two cakes.

In giant letters, one cake said “Thanks” and the other “Liz.”

Some friends preferred to speak of Marek the individual, rather than the causes she espoused.

“She made a decision to give all people who asked for money something,” recalled Judith McConnell, who met Marek when both hiked coast to coast in the Great Peace March of 1986. “If she (only) had 35 cents, she would give away a dime.”

McConnell was one of at least 50 veterans of the cross-country march who came to say farewell to a lost member of their fraternity.

They unrolled the first part of a cloth scroll signed by the peace marchers more than two years ago. On it, was drawn a Statue of Liberty figure holding a broken missile--out of which flew a dove. About a foot below the figure, between where someone had pinned two peace buttons, Marek had written her name.

“She was one of the first to sign,” said activist Jerry Rubin.

“She used to say that she would save the world,” Michele Moore said. “This is too much for me,” she added, reaching for a friend to embrace.

Moore said Marek would probably look at her own death at the hand of terrorists “as an example of the absurdity of hatred.”

Marek became involved in the peace movement after moving to Los Angeles from the Northeast about five years ago.

She “wanted to be a star,” said Coleen Ashly.

Because Marek loved applause, those assembled clapped and cheered for 25 seconds at one point.

For the service, Rubin had donned the same shoes he wore on the Great Peace March.

“They’re not worn out yet,” he said. “I guess it means there’s still marching to do.”