Folk dancer, choral singer
Trained as a chemical engineer, Mars Longden worked in that field for a year and “hated it,” said his wife, Sanna.
He reinvented his professional identity several times, moving to Procter & Gamble, where he helped develop some of the earliest freeze- dried coffee products, and to All net, one of the longdistance phone companies that proliferated after the breakup of AT& T.
Ultimately, he found satisfaction being his own boss as a certified financial planner, and doing international folk- dancing on the side with his wife, an educator who teaches students how to dance and teachers how to instruct dance.
Mr. Longden, 71, died Oct. 4 of a pulmonary embolism at Evanston Hospital. Suddenly feeling ill, he went to the hospital via ambulance. “We squeezed each other’s hand, and they told me to sit in another room,” his wife said. “Forty minutes later, in comes the hospital chaplain” to break the news of his death.
“Within 40 minutes, 45, my life changed completely,” she said.
Along with his wife, Mr. Longden performed and taught international folk dance, especially the traditional line and circle dances that signify joy at weddings, parties and other celebrations. They twirled all over the United States and Macedonia and Hungary. They taught around the globe, including stints in Spain and on four cruises — two on Alaska’s Inside Passage, one on the rivers of Russia, and one on the Danube. From 1973 to 1998, they led an international dance group that today is headquartered at Lake Street Church of Evanston.
Mr. Longden especially loved the footwork of Bulgarian daichovo and Hungarian czardas. The couple also danced with Balkanske Igre, the Chicago Balkan Dance Ensemble.
“There are people in Israel who love him, there are people in Taiwan who love him, people in China who love him,” said his wife, founder of FolkStyle Productions, which distributes CDs and other instructional materials for educators.
Mr. Longden grew up in Detroit and earned a chemical engineering degree at the University of Michigan.
After obtaining an MBA from the University of Chicago, he worked as a self- employed financial planner. He started doing folk dancing at the U. of C.
He met his wife when they performed in a folk troupe. “He could dance, which was important to me,” she said. “One of the biggies: He liked my children, who were 10 and 14 when I married him. And, he loved cats. I’ve always had cats.”
Their home normally was adorned by three cats, though sometimes, the number climbed to five.
“We were a true team,” she said. “We both had businesses at home. We talked together. And never fought in front of people.”
They enjoyed walking by the lake, browsing the Evanston Farmers’ Market and dining at Cross Rhodes in Evanston and Greek Islands restaurant in Chicago. They liked visiting Sarasota, Florida, where they were enchanted by the Big Cat Habitat and Gulf Coast Sanctuary for tigers, lions, birds and bears.
A tenor, Mr. Longden also loved singing. In 1995, he joined the North Shore Choral Society, a 140- member troupe. “Always a warm smile. Really friendly,” said Tom Olkowski, another first tenor with the group. “He was bright. He was sincere. He was honest. And he was just full of life.”
Mr. Longden often welcomed people to dances with a hug and jokes, said another friend, Wylie Crawford.
“A friend of ours wants to put together a joke book” in his honor, his wife said.
He enjoyed taking a grandnephew to Key Lime Cove, where the Longdens told him: “What goes on at the water park, stays at the water park.”
A celebration of his life is planned from 6 p. m. to 9 p. m. Oct. 25 at Lake Street Church of Evanston, 607 Lake St., where the couple danced. His many golf friends will place their golf bags onstage, his wife said, “like an honor guard.”
Mr. Longden also is survived by his stepdaughter, Jessica Lawless, and his stepson, Mick Hans.