Ilo Clare Funk (1889-1978)

From the Foreign Service Journal's 1936 photographic supplement.

  What of the name Ilo? Very likely the only American public servant (let alone diplomat) endowed with this strange first name, Ilo Clare Funk was a Colorado native who served as a career diplomat, being stationed as a Vice Consul and Consul in several different countries over three decades time, including Milan and Florence, Italy; Lucerne, Switzerland; Barbados; and Veracruz and Guadalajara, Mexico. The son of Zolman Edgar and Mabel (Nefsker) Funk, Ilo Clare Funk was born in Trinidad, Colorado on October 30, 1889.

  A student in public schools local to Cripple Creek, Colorado, Ilo Funk later attended the State Preparatory School at Boulder and in 1912 graduated with his B.A. degree from the University of Colorado. Prior to joining the foreign service Funk was employed by various mining companies in Colorado and Mexico between 1907-1911, and in the last-named year began his first steps into a diplomatic career. 

  After a period of study and passing his examination in April 1912, Ilo Funk was named as a consular assistant that September and by August 1913 had advanced to the post of Deputy Consul at Milan, Italy. He would begin service as Vice Consul in Milan in February 1915 and upon further promotion in 1919 achieved the rank of vice-consul class three from the state department. In October of that year, Funk was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Lucerne, Switzerland, and held the vice-consulship there until September 1921, when he was again transferred, this time to Genoa, Italy. Funk remained in Genoa from 1921-25 and during this time achieved the rank of foreign service officer class seven in July 1924. 

  Ilo Clare Funk would marry on June 26, 1923, in St. Pancras, London, England to Margery Nellie Elizabeth Zund (1898-1971). The couple was wed for nearly five decades and would have two daughters, Elizabeth (1927-2013) and Margaret Helen Funk Hutchinson (1928-2011). Following his marriage he continued to serve the state department in Italy, being named as Consul at Catania in 1925 and at Florence in February 1928.

  In 1935 Funk left Italy to assume the consulship at Hull, Great Britain, where he was stationed until early 1940. In July of that year, he was named to his first non-European diplomatic assignment, that of U.S. Consul in Barbados. Having set sail from New York City, Funk assumed his duties that July and remained in Barbados until 1944, when he entered into the post of Consul in Veracruz, Mexico.

  

From the Foreign Service Journal, June 1942.

  Based in Veracruz until 1946, Funk entered into his final diplomatic post in May 1947 when he was named Consul in Guadalajara, Mexico. He retired from the foreign service in 1949 and in the years following his retirement, resided in Sante Fe, New Mexico, and later California, where in 1971 he suffered the death of his wife of forty-eight years, Margery. Funk's final years were spent in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died on February 19, 1978, aged 88. A burial location for both he and his wife remains unknown at the time of this writing.