Wilda Carolyn Halter

December 30, 1929 - April 10, 2025

Wilda Carolyn Halter, known as Carol to all who knew her, was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, a ballet and tap dance teacher, and a friend to many.

She passed away peacefully on April 10, 2025 at age 95.

She was born and raised in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania by Wilda and James Cunningham. As pianists, both parents laid a musical foundation for their three children. Seeds of love for music were planted in Carol as she listened to her father play piano and sing songs to her. She learned to play piano, but later, at the age of 9, her parents took her to a theatre to watch a ballet where she immediately became enthralled with the world of dance. She pursued both ballet and tap, even when it meant taking buses and long walks to get to her dance studio each week.

At age 20, she fell in love with Douglas Cartwright Halter, who was then a ballroom instructor, and she soon became his dance partner. They married on August 14, 1950, and after having four children, moved to California, making their permanent home in Burbank in 1957. Within two years, two more children were born making a total of six: Steven Mark, Carol Lynnette, Jeffrey Kirk, Saundra Lorraine, Bonnie Loretta and Ronald Douglas.

While they were busy raising their family, Carol involved her three daughters in learning ballet. Then together with them, they studied and performed ballet, tap and jazz in Van Nuys. Carol taught tap classes in exchange for their lessons from 1965 to 1972 until she needed to supplement the family’s income. In time, Carol had an opportunity to teach dance again along with her middle daughter, Saundra from 1980 to 1997 at the Olive Recreation Center. In 1998, Saundra was able to open her own dance studio, called Burbank Dance Biz. Carol worked for her daughter, teaching ballet and tap to adults, teenagers and young children. Saundra enlisted both parents, so Carol and Doug began offering ballroom classes at the studio.

Concurrently, they also taught ballroom dance at the Joselyn Adult Center.

At the closing of the dance studio in 2008, Carol, at the age of 79, continued taking ballet and tap lessons at multiple studios including hula classes at the Joselyn Center. They retired from teaching ballroom at the age of 89.

Backtracking a little, in the 1960s, Carol rehearsed and performed with the Burbank Chorale Club, and later with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Meanwhile, she was also involved in the PTA at Thomas Edison Elementary School for many years.

As a young mother, she had taught her oldest son, Steven, to play the piano. Full circle, when she was 90 years old and thought she had forgotten how to play, Steven bought her a portable piano and retaught her how to play classical pieces.

Carol’s husband, Doug, was an active member at the Joselyn Center, serving as both vice president of the House Committee, and as the Treasurer of the Men’s Bridge Club. In the Men’s club, when it came time to elect new candidates for the various positions, no one stepped up to do the challenging secretary’s job, so Doug brought Carol, and proudly recommended her for the position. The men initially objected, but her gentle and respectful demeanor and warm smile won them over. Though she went unrecognized for this service, she did a superb job for them from 2000 to 2003.

Like a giant oak tree with her roots and trunk centered around her family, she also embraced many interests including health and nutrition, education, music, art, gardening, the environment and practicing Nichiren Buddhism. Yet for all her love and thirst for learning and all her many accomplishments and involvement in her community, she always remained humble, even self-effacing. She was so proud of her children as well as her students for all their own endeavors, projects and accomplishments, supportive of them all. Carol always remained gracious, and seldom ever complained. As her middle son, Jeffrey astutely pointed out, she was a mother, not just to her children, but to her students, young and old, and she cared deeply for her friends. Her children referred to her as “Our Angel Mom.”