Carol Goodman,92

Josephine Caroline Goodman, known to all as Carol, died peacefully on March 3 with all of her children gathered round her.

She was born March 13, 1929 in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Rahway, New Jersey, where her father Chester Morison Davis was the minister of the Presbyterian church. Her mother Elisabeth Logan Davis was an artist and a writer. Carol attended high school at Burr and Burton in Manchester VT.

She went to college for one year at the University of Vermont before marrying Theodore Wynkoop Goodman (Ted) and finishing her studies at Bennington College, where he worked. She graduated in 1951.

Carol had one of her stories published in “The Best Short Stories of 1951” while a student at Bennington, in a collection that also included stories by John Cheever and Shirley Jackson. She also studied visual art at Bennington, beginning there her lifelong careers as a writer and as a visual artist.

Ted had served in the Air Force in World War 2, and during the Korean War he was called back into the service. Ted and Carol lived on an Air Force base in Sandwich on Cape Cod while starting their family. When Ted left the military, the young couple settled first in Chatham, New Jersey, then in Morristown, New Jersey, where they stayed until moving to Williamstown, Massachusetts in 2009.

While raising her children and after they had grown, Carol pursued her career as a visual artist. She admired the Fauves and the German Expressionists and often worked in this vein. Her work was full of gestural drawing, bold colors, and great energy, often at a large scale. Her work was shown at many group shows and several solo shows both in New Jersey and in New York City.

She also continued to write stories, many of which were published in university literary magazines. She made something of a name for herself as an accomplished storyteller, mining incidents from her own life and childhood to construct compelling narratives full of humor, insight, and emotional power. She made many literary friends during her sojourns at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and other arts retreats. More recently she wrote several novellas, which were self-published and were widely admired.

Those who knew her remarked on her astonishing creative energy and confidence, both as a writer and painter.

Carol was also a passionate and extremely knowledgeable gardener whose garden in New Jersey was a wonder to behold, as was her garden in Williamstown more recently. Carol and Ted also had a property in Bondville, Vermont where they spent much of the summer each year. This rustic property was the beneficiary of Carol’s unique style of decoration and contained extensive gardens conceived and tended by Carol. It was a beloved gathering place of the family and their circle of friends.

In her later years she was an active and energetic person who never saw herself as old. She insisted on planning trips to far-off places right up to her last days. In recent years she was often seen on outings with her pal Rae Eastman. Perhaps the iconic image of her later years was the two of them, both in their mid-eighties, being hustled through the Stockholm airport in wheelchairs at high speed by a handsome Swedish young man, on their way to Spain.

Carol was predeceased by her husband Ted, who died in 2012, and by her sister Dr. Anne Davis. She is survived by her four children: Logan, Charity, Walter and Elisabeth Goodman; six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Doctors Without Borders in memory of Carol Goodman

https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/secure/donate. To add to the Book of Memories, please visit flynndagnolifuneralhomes.com.