Carolyn Lee Nickell

            Carolyn Lee Nickell, eighty-nine, passed Friday, May 13, 2022, at home in Mills River, North Carolina. She was born July 21, 1932, to the late Thelma Carol and Howard Carrol Cravens in Glendale, California.

            Carolyn graduated from Burbank High School in Burbank, California, and then from University of California Los Angeles. She was retired from her work in classified advertising with San Jose Mercury News. In Asheville, Carolyn was involved in Mountain Area Radio Reading Service reading for the blind and enjoyed gardening in her large yard. Carolyn was a world traveler, traveling across the world to Africa, New Zealand, Europe, throughout North America and in the South Pacific. She would fondly recall sailing across the South Pacific with her Uncle Stanley, Aunt Mary and cousins Sidney and Stanley, visiting Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, and New Zealand to return to Newport Beach, California in 1949. 

            In addition to her parents, Carolyn’s sister, Kathryn King, preceded her in death.

            She is survived by her sons, Bennie (Dianna) of Asheville, North Carolina, and Jean-Pierre Rusterholtz (Stacy) of Gilroy, California; and her grandchildren, Analisse, Clarissa and Emelia of Asheville, North Carolina, and Alexander, Natalie and Madeline Rusterholtz of Gilroy, California. 

            Carolyn's ashes are to be scattered at sea. 

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