Martha Gates Whitehead Ouksel is finally at peace after more than nine years' suffering from lung cancer. She was the proud mother of three: Cosil Lewis, Gabriel Masin, and Lilya Suzanne; and the loving wife of nearly forty years to Aris Ouksel. She was the sister of Christopher Lewis Whitehead and Jessica Holman MacPhail, sister-in-law to Susan Chandler, and daughter to Suzanne Flynn Whitehead.Whitehead was known for her twenty five year career in global business at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the City of Chicago, and Sprint International. She was active in The International Trade Club of Chicago and in the associations Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Local Industrial Retention Initiative, as a promoter of Illinois-manufactured exports. She earned a BA from Indiana University in Spanish/Latin American Studies and an MBA from Thunderbird.  Whitehead was a writer since childhood. She was briefly active with Chicago North Romance Writers of America, as well as a participant at The Clearing Writers' Workshop. She published four novels under the pen name Emma Gates. She lived in a number of countries in her youth, and in Oak Park for the last thirty years, where she was a member of The Lowell, several Book Clubs, a Game Group and a long-standing Novelists' Group. Martha is donating her body for medical research. In lieu of flowers please consider a contribution to the Lung Cancer Research Fund, as a thanks to Dr. Philip Bonomi, under the auspices of Rush University Medical Center. Funeral care provided by G.L. Hills Funeral Home. For information please call (847) 699-9003