Mrs. Minnie Mae Jackson Carroll

Minnie Mae Jackson was born July 31, 1924 in Portland, Oregon the second of five children of Raymond and Lettie Jackson. She was born at home, as was the custom at that time and attended by the family physician, Dr. Wilcox. Mae grew up in the family home located at SE 60th and Henderson street, in small home on a large corner lot. The yard was full of flowers, bushes and trees and sparked Mae’s life-long interest in gardening.

In her teen years, Mae was greatly impacted by the Great Depression, which contributed to her thrifty ways throughout her life. She graduated from Franklin High School in 1943, during the midst of WWII, and went to work in the shipyards in Vancouver. Her job entailed finish work on carrier escorts, of which 62 were launched during the war by the Kaiser ship works.

It was during this time period that Mae first began roller skating, primarily at the rink in Oaks Park. Her interest soon spread to dance skating and a lifetime passion. Mae skated at other roller rinks throughout the Portland area including the Imperial, Vancouver and Hillsboro, but Oaks Park with its huge pipe organ was her favorite. Mae learned all the popular skate dances – waltz, foxtrot, you name it, she could skate it. In the 1950s and 1960s Mae began competing in pairs skate dancing and won several awards.

It was during this time that Mae met Cecil Carroll, also an avid skater at Oaks Park. The two were married on June 17, 1960 in Vancouver, Washington and Mae moved into Cecil’s home on NE 75th Avenue. The two continued skating, sometimes twice a day, for the next forty years.

After the war ended, Mae was employed by Oregon Journal for 13 years as a dispatch messenger and city circulation clerk. In the early 1960s, she went to work for Portland State University in transfer evaluations where she stayed until her retirement in the mid 1980s.

In addition to her passion for roller skating, Mae also loved cats. Always an easy target for a poor hungry stray, there were usually two or three cats in her house at all times. Mae enjoyed gardening and liked to have a wide variety of plants and flowers in her yard. She was an active member of the Rocky Butte friends group, improving the park and planting grass and flowering plants throughout. Mae and Cecil did some traveling, checking out skate rinks in various cites throughout the United States along with a trip to Japan for the Olympics.

Mae was always a solid pillar in our family, always the one to ask questions of, always the one who called or wrote letters to keep the communication going even as we dispersed throughout the country. She was also welcoming and supportive of the friends, co-workers and neighbors that she encountered in her life journey. Mae was always strong, independent, and most of all, spoke her mind. She will be greatly missed by family, friends and acquaintances.

Gerald Howard, Nephew