Carolyn Joyce Kaye

Carolyn Joyce Kaye, 80, passed away peacefully at St. Vincent’s Nursing Home in Halifax on September 18, 2022. She was born on February 23, 1942 at the Evangeline Home in Saint John, New Brunswick, the daughter of Lloyd Taylor and Mary Elizabeth Kaye. She was adopted, as was her brother William Brian Tower, by Earl and Evelyn Tower of Gunningsville, N.B. The family moved to Windsor, Ontario in 1946 and subsequently to Ottawa, where Carolyn graduated from Fisher Park High School and worked at Freiman’s department store and Ottawa City Hall. She would live the balance of her life in Halifax-Dartmouth, N.S. once the family moved again in 1960.

She worked at different times at Shearwater, the Halifax International Airport, Imperial Oil, CBC, the Dartmouth Free Press, C.R.C.D. (March of Dimes), and British American Oil. She met her husband Kenneth A. Dennis working at B-A, they were married on July 20, 1968 and would raise three children in Dartmouth.

Carolyn was a kind, caring, honest, trustworthy, hardworking person with great stamina, and overcame much adversity in her life. In the 1980’s she returned to the work force and did a variety of temporary work before becoming permanently employed as a secretary for the Department of National Defense at the dockyard. She worked for the air force and later the submarine navy, retiring in 2002. During her retirement, she did volunteer work for the Literacy program at the North End Library, and she continued to have reading sessions with her tutee Kathy Dobson well after their affiliation with the Literacy program had officially concluded. She also volunteered for the Arthritis Society and at Northwood, where she distributed and gathered books on loan from the Halifax Library for Northwood residents. She also participated in Post Crossings, sending and receiving postcards from individuals all over the world.

She loved books and libraries, and her favourite author was Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables as well as many other stories, all of which Carolyn read and loved. Her favourite book by Montgomery was The Blue Castle. She also read every book that was written on Lucy Maud Montgomery herself, including the author’s published journals. She also enjoyed reading Agatha Christie and Doris Miles Disney. In addition to raising her family, she enjoyed cooking and baking, at which she was very good. She took cake decorating and made many decorative cakes for her family. She researched her family background in the late 1970’s and learned of both her birth mother and father’s identities. While she did not get to meet them, she did get to meet relatives of both in New Brunswick.

Carolyn was proud to be a New Brunswicker and considered Moncton to be her home town, as her mother’s family lived in Gunningsville and had a summer home in Albert County, and her father had worked for both the Moncton Times and Transcript newspapers when he came to Moncton from Sackville, N.B. where he had grown up. Carolyn passed on her love for New Brunswick to her family, her husband and children enjoyed and continue to enjoy Fundy National Park. Ken and Carolyn even spent their honeymoon there.

Carolyn was predeceased by her parents, her brother William (“Billy”), and her husband Ken (in 1993). She is survived by her children, Michael (Michele) Dennis of Dobbs Ferry, New York; Colin, at home, as well as Jennifer of Beamville, Ontario. She is also survived by grandchildren Ivan Jivon (Haley), Cassidy, Julian and Miranda.

A chapel service will be held for Carolyn at Cruikshank’s Funeral Home on Windsor Street in Halifax on Monday, September 26th at 10am.