Karolyn Wilson Reveals All!

Karolyn Wilson was born at home in South Solon, Ohio. She was the only child of Keith and Caroline. Combining both their names is the reason why Karolyn's name is spelled with a K. Now you know! 

You may wonder just where South Solon is located in Ohio. First of all, Solon is a suburb of Cleveland. However South Solon is not. It is actually 170 miles south of Solon!  South Solon is only .23 sq. mi. The population is 329. When it began way back in 1880 it had a population of 262 so it hasn't grown by leaps and bounds. 

Karolyn was an only child. Her great grandfather, her grandfather and her father were all born in South Solon. They also all died there. Her great grandfather was mayor and her dad was a trustee. They appear to be the men who held South Solon together and kept it going.

When Karolyn started school there with just twelve others in her kindergarten class. Then the school was divided into two rooms. The first, second and third grades were in one room. Fourth, fifth and sixth graders were in the other room. Karolyn is probably the only person we will ever know who went to a two room schoolhouse! What a unique experience! 

When she turned twelve, her parents got a divorce. Poor Karolyn barely understood what that even meant. However, it did mean that she and her mother moved to London, Ohio. This was the county seat and the population was close to 5,000 when Karolyn moved there. That was a big change. 

Here is a fact about London, Ohio that I bet even Karolyn doesn't know although she might since she is a member of the Methodist Church. Soon after the village was platted in the early 1810's a Methodist church was founded in the community. The congregation built a log church building in 1820 and it was London's first church. In the early 1900s, the church added facilities for the storage of human milk to sustain the orphanage it then operated. Now there is an unusual fact!

Starting seventh grade in London was scary. There were two full classes of seventh graders with at least fifty students. This was a drastic change from South Solon's two room school. Our Karolyn managed it very well very quickly.  She was an honors student, a majorette, a member of the homecoming court and probably had the most detentions of anybody. She just could not stop talking.  Another very important fact is that she met her future husband when she was a sophomore! They became a couple when they were very young.

After high school Karolyn had her career planned since she was five years old. She always wanted to be a nurse. She went to Mt. Carmel School of Nursing to begin her training. The school was strict. Curfew was at 6 pm. No radios were allowed.  There was one night out a week until 10 pm. No one was allowed to wear skirts or pants. They had one weekend off a month. There was just one phone on each floor. However, she received excellent training.

Near the end of the three years she also spent time training in other localities. She practiced in a hospital in Columbus which had patients in iron lungs. The Toledo State Hospital was her next stop.  Before she went there she was warned by the nuns not to go to the Ding Dong. Of course, Karolyn went there every night because there was no curfew in Toledo! 

While at Mt. Carmel the students had duty from 7 am to 11am. They had class from 1 pm to 4 pm. After that they did night care from 7 pm to 11 pm. The cost for three years training was $500. Karolyn only failed one class, Ethics. That was because she did not agree with the Catholic philosophy. She could still be a nurse though!

She graduated and just one week later she got married to her high school sweetheart.  Her new husband, Dave, borrowed a car and fifty dollars and they were off on their honeymoon! Returning home she needed a job. However, she never had to look for that job or even apply for that job. Amazingly, for the rest of her life Karolyn had many different jobs in nursing but she never applied for any of them. She was always recruited. I do not know if there is anyone anywhere who can say that.

Karolyn was recruited by her family doctor to work in his office. He was an excellent diagnostician. He was also an alcoholic which no one realized at the time. Finally he ended up leaving for a month to dry out. Karolyn took over the office and made house calls. She actually diagnosed a case of leukemia and another of sickle cell anemia. She was making $1.75 an hour. When the doctor returned Karolyn realized that she unknowingly had become his enabler. After ten years he was done and another doctor took over for five or six years.

Following that Karolyn was recruited to be a mental health floor supervisor. She was available seven days a week. It was her least liked job.  Luckily she was soon offered a job as health department supervisor which gave her weekends off. 

Ohio started a pediatric nursing program at inner city clinics. Karolyn wrote a grant application for a prenatal clinic. When they won the grant she ended up running the clinic. Soon she was the Director of Hospital and Community Education. She ran that and the fire drills too.! Another job she was recruited for was supervising the Emergency Room and she loved it. Finally after thirty-six years Karolyn retired. Or did she? 

Karolyn's husband Dave was a year away from retirement so she thought she would have a year at home to herself. Of course this never happened. There was a desperate need for a school nurse. Suddenly Karolyn was responsible for 3200 kids and four buildings. She took care of everything from scraped knees to drug overdoses and unplanned pregnancies. This final job lasted five years! Dave spent a few years at home to himself! Meanwhile going back to the beginning, Dave and Karolyn moved in with her mom after they married. They began to build a house in the country. It cost $13,000 to build. Forty years later they sold it for $150,000. They also had two children. Douglas, who lives in Colorado and is head of the Public Defender's Office and Diane is an administrator at Duly Health and Care.

When they both finally retired they sold their home and bought a condo and a motor home. They traveled to every state except Hawaii. They drove the Alcan Highway several times. They loved their summer travels around the United States.  After eight or nine years they were thinking of becoming snow-birds in Florida. However, they met a couple from West Virginia who talked about how great Arizona was.  Their condo in Ohio sold in one week and they were on their way to Arizona.

They loved their life in a gated community in Arizona. They swam daily and the people were wonderful. Life was good. Unfortunately, things happen. At Christmas time Dave was getting out the decorations. Karolyn cautioned him about climbing a ladder after he had had a hip replacement. He reassured her that he could manage.  He not only fell but he took her down too. He broke the leg attached to the replaced hip. Karolyn still wouldn't speak to him as they wheeled him out on a gurney! It was a fifty mile drive to the hospital and then the nursing home in Mesa every day until she could finally take him home. She was speaking to him by this time. Unfortunately things were not the same after that. Dave died in 2014 at the age of 80.

Karolyn stayed in Arizona for four more years before she moved here to be closer to family. At Avenida we have noticed she wears a lot of team shirts. This started in high school where Dave played all three major sports and she went to every game. When her son Do*uglas was in school he also was an athlete so she went to all of his games. Now that she is in Naperville she has a great grandson and a great granddaughter who are athletes so she is the perpetual fan extraordinary! Karolyn is the ultimate fan because she has been cheering for different teams since she was a sophomore in high school.

Karolyn loved her life in Ohio and Arizona. Now that she is with us at Avenida it is a whole new world for her. She has always lived in small communities where everyone was pretty much the same as her. Here she is in a new world learning about other cultures and meeting people from all over this country and the world. She loves it!