Ione Markes Sfarnas

January 18, 1924 - September 26, 2021

lone Markes Sfarnas was born in Detroit Michigan in 1924 to James and Pauline Markes. She spent her formative years in Norwalk, Ohio, where she loved the small-town life working in her father's restaurant, The Crystal, and enjoying her family and cousins were the highlights of her youth. In 1952, she married James Sfarnas and the couple moved to Tucson, Arizona, where they opened the Saddle & Sirloin Supper Club, one of the first fine dining restaurants in the Southwest, bringing in top tier entertainment from New York and Las Vegas. Acts like The Platters, The Four Lads and the Beverly Hillbillies would flow on and off the stage. Raised in an entrepreneurial family, she enjoyed working alongside her husband at the restaurant. lone adored the beauty of the desert and mountains of Tucson, where she spent the last 70 years of her life. The rest of lone's family, including her parents and brother, Nick, followed her to Tucson. It was her two daughters, Jeannie (David) Howell and Paula (Peter) Fasseas, her grandchildren — James (Michelle) Howell, Jennifer Howell (Stephen Ochoa), Stephen Howell, Alexis Fasseas and Drew(Meghan) Fasseas, and her great-grandchildren—Nicholas and Sophia Howell, Chloe and Madeline WeIle, Tennyson Ochoa, Katherine, Alexandra and Olivia Fasseas that she was most devoted to in life. Surrounded by love, celebrating milestones, making her famous spanakopita. Petite lone was sweet and demure to the outside world, but a strong and dependable mother and grandmother, keeping all the chicks in line. As her family would say, she was small but mighty, and always a fountain of unending, unconditional love and support. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Association or PAWS Chicago