A passing of wives
The unexpected passing away this week of Carol Lee Dunn (1942-2024) has sent my mind reeling. I haven't seen Carol in many years, but still, the news of her death wasn't easy. I've been lucky in a way though; I've managed to reconnect with Carol in the past few months via social media. Unknowingly, I was finding my own personal closure to a long-ago chapter of our lives. Some friends of mine will always tell me that I have kept "work wives" throughout my life, and in some ways, although she was several years my senior, Carol might have just fit that bill.
Carol was a "DMV Contract Clerk" and I was an "F&I Manager." We worked together at a Ford agency during those fast and furious early 1990s. This particular working relationship in the auto business is certainly fast-paced; it is co-dependent, and intertwined. The truth too is that Carol was very good at her job. It was Carol who helped me sort out the car deal messes that the sales department needed to create to keep the small Ford dealership in the black. And please, don't get me wrong. Carol could be tough as nails to work with. She was exacting, to say the least. She had a caustic tongue that could cut you to the quick if your paperwork wasn't in order. You never knew what mood she was going to be in, or what transgression you were going to get chastised for. Nonetheless, you always knew that Carol absolutely and positively had your back. Her files (and this meant your files) were always in perfect order.
And yes, we grew to be friends.
You see, Carol also had a huge heart and was indeed way more than all that "car business stuff." I was humbled when she volunteered her interest in my nascent study of genealogy and singlehandedly helped put into manuscript form a series of twenty-odd letters written about one hundred years prior - letters that helped me locate my grandmother's birth mother and led me to my own Mayflower ancestry. Yes, Carol was so much more than just a "contract clerk" at that Ford dealership to me. Like all of us, Carol also led a complex life of her own. Outside of that dealership, she was a devoted wife, mother, and daughter.
Because of this, or despite our "car business" ways, I've decided that I want to somehow honor Carol. I don't have a lot of tools to do this buy as I'm not the best at sending flower arrangements or rich enough for charities. No, the only way I know how to do this is to look at her ancestry. I wanted to see just who were the people that made up Carol Lee Dunn. What people had brought that firebrand car business contract lady into our midst? I felt that if I could bring forth some of her ancestors, that even in her passing I might feel closer to her. I might understand her better. I might finally know a bit more about Carol.
What I found was a strong Irish ancestry. Carol Lee Dunn was born Carol Lee Murphy on the 20 August 1942 in Los Angeles County, California. The direct lines of both her paternal and maternal great-grandfathers having been born in Ireland. In the middle of all that, Carol's ancestry was also a mix of strong English and Scottish lines filtering down through Canada, with a smattering of New York Palatinate German blood thrown into her mother's mix. The earliest known reference (that I could find) to her family in America comes through her mother and shows possible ties to the Soule, Eaton, and Howland families of Plymouth Rock.
Carol was also interestingly enough, a woman who had married for her first and second husbands a set of brothers, and for her third husband, a man with the same last name as her mother's maiden name - that of Dunn. (It is a connection that still confounds the genealogcial researcher in me.)
Be all of this as it may, I wanted to see what pictures I could find of Carol's ancestors. I know this isn't much, but I wanted to see if I could see something of Carol in their eyes. I wanted to honor Carol by looking into the eyes of her ancestors and through what pictures of them I might be able to find. The pictures online have been few, but I was able to find three women, all paternal ancestors of Carol, that I thought I'd share with you. I believe that if f you look very closely at each of them, you will see in their eyes a hint of Carol and a hint of one of my dearest "workwives." You will see a lady who lived an incredible journey of love and terrible loss, of personal sacrifice, and yes, that of a "car business contract clerk" who took pity on a budding genealogist all now so many years ago. You will be missed, Carol Dunn. You were a tough gal who didn't always get the breaks in life you surely deserved. You were good. You were kind. You were strong.
In gratitude, I remember you.
Rest in peace, Carol.
No comments:
Post a Comment