Mark V DEBOE

10 OCT 1937 - 28 OCT 2020

• BIRTH: 10 OCT 1937, New Carlisle, St Joseph, IN
• DEATH: 28 OCT 2020, South Bend, St Joseph, IN

• MARRIAGE: 27 JUN 1959, St Joseph County, Indiana

INDEX

[N15416] Mark V. De Boe
October 10, 1937 ~ October 28, 2020 (age 83)

South Bend, IN - Mark V. De Boe, 83, passed away at home on October 29, 2020. Mark was born on October 10, 1937, to the late Victor and Leona (Nova) De Boe in New Carlisle, IN. On June 27, 1959, in South Bend, IN, he married the late Rosemary (Horvath). He is also preceded in death by a sister, Harriet Hare and a brother, John De Boe. Mark is survived by his Son, Richard Mark (Penny) De Boe; grandchildren, Tiffany Escribano and Ryan De Boe; great-grandchildren, Marinela, Zulema and Yanisa; siblings, Betty Fuller, Germaine Hart, Clementine De Boe, Louise Richert, James De Boe, Emiel De Boe and Marie Hooper. Mark worked as a forklift driver at AM General for many years before retiring. Private family services will take place. Hahn Funeral Home has been entrusted with handling the arrangements. Contributions to Diabetes Association of St. Joseph County 6910 N. Main Street Granger, IN 46530

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Mark DeBoe is an Indiana Resident at 5307 West Colfax, South Bend
A next-door eyesoreNeighbor upset at mounds of dirt, junk
October 08, 2011|JEFF HARRELL | Tribune Staff Writer

Seven birds once drank water from a dirt mound next door to Mark DeBoe's West Colfax Avenue home. "Three or four hours later," said DeBoe's granddaughter, Tiffany DeBoe, "we found them dead in the street." Mark DeBoe stood in the middle of his front yard looking upward into his neighbor's dumping ground. Huge mounds of dirt, some as high as 20 feet, stretch behind Doug Jones's home -- which fronts the 500 block of Mayflower Road. Tires and old automobile parts stick out of one of the mounds that rises uphill a few feet from a three-foot cement retaining wall bordering Jones's property. The wall, a primary issue of contention between the two neighbors, appears to lean on the verge of collapse -- an event that would threaten to spill dirt and trash downhill into DeBoe's yard. A few feet behind DeBoe's garage, the rusty white surface of an old washing machine is visible from the top of a 15-foot-high mound of dirt on Jones's side of the fence. "Watch out for that trap!" DeBoe shouts. Two wooden rat traps sit on plywood walkways in a small side yard next to DeBoe's garage.There's rats," he says. "There's big ones." The rats come out of the mounds and the wood piles stacked in the rear of Jones's property stretching north of the house toward Olds Avenue. DeBoe lifted a cage from the ground in a fenced area of his rear yard bordering Olds next to Jones's wood piles. That cage trapped "36 rats at the end of May," he claimed. "I came out here after I put the fence up," DeBoe said, "and rats were playing like kids." Jones walked over from behind one of the large wood piles and raises his eyes at the mention of rats. "There's no rats out here," Jones says. "There's field mice running around, but no rats."
Groundhogs, skunks, opossums and other small wildlife also live in the wood piles and also use the wall as a haven, particularly a portion of the wall that disappears into a dirt mound on the Colfax side of Jones's yard, DeBoe said. When it rains, water and soil runoff spill downhill onto the Colfax roadway and DeBoe's property, DeBoe said. "How would you like to live next door to this?" DeBoe asks. South Bend's 2nd District Common Councilman Henry Davis Jr., said he asked the same question to city officials. "There is an issue with the quality of life," Davis said. "It starts with code enforcement. You don't get to that level of violations... without somebody either not going over there, or somebody not being more aggressive with citations."
According to the city's Chief Inspector Brian Haygood, the property has been on the city's radar since June 7 when a hearing was held to address the conditions. Jones was given "until the end of August" to clean things up, Haygood said. "And then they basically authorized us to clean that property," the chief inspector adds, noting the city's Solid Waste Division is also monitoring the property. "We'd really rather not have to do that," Haygood said of the city aiding in cleaning up private property. "But I also understand that it looks bad. We're following the process we would normally follow, but it's a slow process." Jones, who has lived at the house for 11 years, bought the property from his grandfather, who purchased it from a man said to have allowed dumping. "It was known as the city dump 30 years ago," Jones said. Now, pushed by his neighbor, his councilman and the city to clean it up, Jones said he is enlisting backhoes and dump trucks. "I hauled (away) 25 loads of dirt on Sunday," Jones said. "This week I've got dump trucks coming out again." The wood, he adds, is being stacked for "winter heat." As for the retaining wall -- which Haygood says could be a potential legal matter between the neighboring property owners -- "I'm trying to fix the wall," Jones said. Meanwhile, DeBoe, his wife, Rosemary, and granddaughter Tiffany sit frustrated next door with their eyes peeled for rats. "I don't believe the taxpayers should have to clean his trash," Mark DeBoe said. "If the man can't take care of his property, why should we have to pay?" DeBoe took off his cap and scratched his head. "That's really the end of the story," he said. "It's a sad, dirty story."FEATURED ARTICLES