My Friend Carol
There she is, dressed in white, seated in the center of the stone wall–my friend Carol, star of our first grade play, “Over the Garden Wall.” Marjo is there, too, also dressed in white and standing with a crown on her head next to Carol’s cousin Sandra, dressed in black. I’m the first flower on the left behind the wall. The four of us stayed in touch and then reconnected with five others at our 35th Phillips High School reunion in 1997. We have had many fun times together over the last 25 years.
Carol has experienced gradual hereditary memory loss for the last several years. Her husband Jim Groom texted on New Year’s Day that this may be the last week of her life and asked me to let friends know. We’re all very sad. With my prayers, I offer pictures showing how much we loved each other. I can’t find photos from the years we saw each other every day, but the path from my house to hers was well-worn. Her parents, Hila and Fred, helped raise me. This photo of Fred from WW II conveys some of his lively spirit. An avid photographer, he took a picture for our family’s Christmas card in 1957 that continues to inspire me.
Carol had a wonderful Buffet Crampon clarinet made in France and took lessons from Ada Creel. I was her piano accompanist. Every time I hear the Adagio movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, I think of how beautifully she played it. In fact listening to it just now brought me to tears. Our senior high school yearbook lists Carol’s many activities and shows her as “Band Queen”
Carol went to Texas Tech, and I to Rice, but we saw each other whenever we were home in Phillips. On June 11, 1966, she was a bridesmaid in our wedding in Borger, Texas:
We weren’t able to attend Carol and Jim’s wedding on December 24, 1966, but we did meet them in New York City a week later, when my brother Harry took us all to Tlortilla Flats, a bar in Greenwich Village. In July 1967, we met Carol and Jim again in Paris. They were on Temporary Duty from Jim’s army base in Germany, while we were passing through on our way to Steve’s summer job in Istanbul, Turkey. What fun to meet old friends in Paris! This photo was taken a few years later near Boston.
Every April in the late 1970s, Carol, tired of snow and ready for spring, would drive down from Warren, Vermont with her sons Aaron and Matthew to visit us in Arlington, Virginia. She brought sunny weather and fun playmates for Lilli and David. Here’s an account from the Borger News Herald of a trek they made from Vermont to Texas in 1981.
In the late 1980s our family saw the Grooms when we went skiing in Vermont and appreciated what expert skiers Aaron and Matthew had become. We didn’t stay long, though, as the temperature dropped so low that Shelby still remembers it as the coldest she’s ever been. In the early 1990s, Carol and Jim came to Washington and inspired our first visit to the new American Indian Museum.
In April 2000 we YaYas got together at my house for the Heavenly Reunion that we imagined our parents and teachers must be having. Carolyn Plumlee Kidd arranged a tour of the Capitol and we chose seats on either side of the aisle in the House of Representatives, 5 to 4. Carol is on the right in this photo that Louise Hill Chester took at the Lincoln Memorial. 
When Lilli began treatments for Hodgkins in 2006, Carol was already battling cancer. In August 2008, we joined forces to support Lilli’s participation in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a two-day bicycle event to raise funds for Dana Farber Cancer Institute. A bonus of this trip was getting to visit Aaron, Tara, and 4-year-old Evan Groom, who were with Tara’s family on the Cape. Then we followed the race all the way to Provincetown.
Carol was there for me again when Violet was born in Cambridge MA in August 2009. I was thrilled to show off my first granddaughter to her and Johnnie Morgan.
We YaYas convened again in Fredericksburg TX in 2013. Here is Carol, front and center among all nine of us plus our classmate Billy Don Briscoe.
Carol loved to visit museums. When Jim and Carol came by our place in Florida in 2014, we visited the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach. In May 2015 Marjo and I met Carol and Jim in Williamstown MA to see the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art.
The last time I saw Carol was in September 2016, when we stopped in Vermont on our way home from visiting Montreal with Lilli and Violet. How I treasure these memories of my dear friend Carol.
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