Carol was born on Christmas Eve in the Great Depression Year of 1930 as the third girl of a small family in Belleville, Illinois. She was a tomboy, unlike her three sisters, and a great help to her father who taught her many skills. Her resourcefulness began in childhood, when she raised and sold parakeets, and tended the family Victory Garden on a plot next to their two-story home.

She was sharp, particularly in math and accounting. She learned shorthand -- and even though she didn’t have a typewriter to practice on, she passed a test typing envelopes better than anyone else. She worked in accounting until she married John, a man her coworker Marge Augustine introduced her to. She had an aptitude for keeping good records throughout her life, noting her babies’ first words and steps, corn and tree sales, family tree history for 10 generations and over 1100 names, RV trip tix, and activities through her last days in assisted living. She took slides, Super 8 home movies, and early photos with a Brownie camera, inspiring son John’s later career.

Carol was a Renaissance woman with a can-do attitude and a love of creating and pursuing practical projects. She upholstered and refinished furniture, wall-papered, built doll houses, playhouses, and sewed Barbie clothes, winter coats, swimsuits, Stacy’s wedding dress, stuffed animals for school fundraising, canvas dams, work pants patches, and more. She cooked anything -- from hunting spoils to organ meats to German and Italian foods. She canned and preserved, and kept the fruit room and freezer full. You name it, Carol found some way to learn and do it.

Her kids say that if Carol had been born just a generation later, she’d have used her engineering ingenuity to solve all the problems of the world.

She married John 64 years ago, and left Illinois for good. Alone she was, a non-Italian married into an Italian family where she was clearly different. She wrote letters by hand in the era of the expensive and precious “long-distance phone call.” The risk, adventure, and isolation is something hard to imagine these days.

She was a dedicated wife, and helped her hard-working husband with equally hard work. “She was a dedicated lady and helped me all my life,” said John. They were quite a good team all their years, even into their 70s and 80s. Carol burned ditches, irrigated crops, ran a tractor to plant quickly so they could attend daughter Kathy’s graduation in Baltimore. Carol pursued the tree nursery business to ensure adequate college funds for all the kids. Even though baby gifts were immediately put into college savings, not for spending along the way, she got all her kids through Catholic schools. She also got them swimming lessons, music lessons, sewing lessons.

The focus on education worked. Stacy and John both earned Master's degrees. And Kathy holds an engineering degree from Johns Hopkins. Carol was immensely proud of her kids. She instilled hard work, good values, kindness to others. With her parents’ inheritance, Carol offered college scholarships to great-nieces and nephews.

Carol didn’t limit her caring to relations alone. Hardly. She and John visited friends, widows, and extended family -- at hospitals, nursing homes, and homes -- praying at bedsides, bringing favorite foods, installing railings and grab bars, listening. Airport trips for friends and neighbors were so frequent that the kids teased they were the Priola Shuttle Service. Anything extra from gardens and fields were donated to a convent, to Catholic Charities, or a family in need. She and John were always generous to the church and charities, even when money was very scarce for them.

Carol said, “I’ve enjoyed my life. God’s been good to me. I thank him for it.” Carol was fiercely faithful, prayed humbly, and was willing to work hard. “God helped me all the way,” she said. “I’ve been happy. I’ve had a full life.”

Carol’s life touched so many because, to the very end, she was about giving. When cancer left her weak, frustrated, and feeling useless, friends from the Villas at Sunny Acres would rally visits and pledge to make sure she had all she needed daily. With tears, they recounted stories of how Carol would take them by the hand, soften whatever was wrong, and even make them laugh.

From the kids: she was a gorgeous vibrant woman we love, who made each of us who we are, who set our sights high and our hearts true. She gave us all she had and could -- and then some more. Thank you cannot measure up. But gratitude is all we have.

We say farewell with full hearts.