Carol Jean Donle Sawyer died peacefully at her family’s Maine vacation home, “The Farm,” on August 18, 2022 after a 2 year battle with ovarian cancer. Carol is survived by her husband of 55+ years, Robert C. Sawyer, their two daughters Christie Sawyer (Robert Brown) and Anne Croteau (Robert), grandchildren Olivia and Nathaniel Croteau, Quinn and Declan Brown, collectively known as the QOND Club. Younger brothers David Donle (Kathy) and Peter Donle (Amy), three nieces, a nephew, and a large extended family of cousins and relations that she treasured.
Carol was born November 22, 1943 in Gary, Indiana, to Kenneth W. and Donna Pratt Donle. The family soon moved to Ridgewood, NJ, where Carol grew up, graduating from Ridgewood HS in 1961. Some 60 years later Carol remained in regular contact with many of her high school classmates. Carol spent a year with her family in Alabama but returned to NJ. In 1964 she was working at the U of NH library and taking courses at UNH when she met Rob Sawyer, a UNH student. Although they had only gone on a couple of dates, Carol needed to leave where she was living in a hurry and Rob picked her up in the middle of a snow storm. Romance followed and they were married in 1966. The Air Force sent the newly married couple and their cat to Illinois, where they spent two years. Carol returned to UNH while Rob was serving in Vietnam.
After Rob was discharged from the Air Force, they headed to Madison, WI, where their two daughters, Christie Sawyer and Anne Croteau were born. Rob was in graduate school and Carol completed her Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. The family moved to NJ and then to Long Island where Carol, while raising two daughters, found time to complete a Masters in Social Work and completed advanced training in the Suffolk Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She worked for a number of years as a school social worker and had a private practice which she continued when they moved back to NJ in 1999 and to Mass in 2008. Their final move was to Portsmouth, NH, in 2015. Rob was fond of saying that “we got married in 1966 and the Air Force sent us to Illinois. We spent 49 years trying to get back to NH.”
Rob retired in 2012 and Carol finally closed out her career in 2013, which allowed them to spend much more time at “The Farm” and its swimmin’ hole. Carol’s great grandfather originally purchased the farm property in the 1870s making Carol the fourth generation to own it. Retirement allowed Carol to indulge in her twin passions, knitting and genealogy research, though she never did get to finish that second pair of socks for Rob. She delighted in finding that she was related to various historical figures including “Washington’s general,” Nathaniel Greene, the Abner Doubleday who did not invent baseball and Sara Delano Roosevelt, FDR’s mother. Her research actually helped two of her friends reunite with “lost” family. It also led to numerous road trips to track down various ancestors.
Carol’s wishes were to be cremated. A memorial service will be held at Poitras, Neal and York Funeral Home, 71 Maple St., Cornish, ME on the Saturday September 3, 2022 at 2 p.m. followed by an informal get together back at the Farm, Parsonsfield, ME. Ashes will be interred at Porter Village Cemetery, where her parents are buried, on Sunday September 4, 2022 at 10 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her honor can be made to American Cancer Society and Planned Parenthood