Carolyn E Zimmer

Mercer – Carolyn Elaine (Gifford) Zimmer was born on July 14, 1930 in Fairfield the daughter of Natalie Maude (Day) and Ralph Abner Gifford and she departed on June 14, 2012 in her Mercer home of heart disease, just shortly before her 82nd birthday.

When Carolyn was five years old her father had an untimely death and their family moved from their farm in Fairfield to a house in Norridgewock. Carolyn was educated in the Norridgewock elementary school to grade 6. Then, she moved on to the Seventh-day Adventist Church School in Norridgewock. After her graduation from eighth grade, she went to Riverview Academy for two years and completed her high school education at Union Springs Academy in upstate New York. She attended Atlantic Union College for two years where she met her husband Randolph Zimmer who was from New York City. Carolyn and Randy were married on June 10, 1951 in South Lancaster, MA and they recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary.

Outside her family, Carolyn’s passions were teaching and farming. She taught for one year in Hartford, CT and for many years at the Collingswood Park Seventh-day Adventist church school in New Shrewsbury, NJ. She was known for being able to instill a love of learning, especially in students who were behind in their studies. She always looked for ways to instill new knowledge to her children through life lessons. She took pride in the flower and organic produce she lovingly coaxed from the yard surrounding their house in Middletown, NJ. Carolyn shared her love of working with the soil by spearheading a family-plot farming cooperative at the church. While living in New Jersey, Carolyn and her family enjoyed many years of camping, skiing, and volunteer work with the Collingswood Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. Carolyn and Randy lived with their four children in New Jersey for over 30 years before moving to Mercer, Maine upon Randy’s retirement in 1984. It was there that they built their retirement home and Carolyn was able to realize a life-long dream of owning her own organic blueberry farm. The move to Maine engendered many additional family memories including hosting the Gifford Family Reunion for about two decades. Carolyn always loved having family and friends stop by and visit.

Carolyn touched the lives of many through her teaching, tax preparation and her involvement with fund raising for the Riverview Memorial School. She was intelligent and gregarious; her presence will be greatly missed. Carolyn is survived by her husband, Randy; daughter, Patricia Wecht and her husband Francis; son, Steven had his wife Carolyn; son, Lawrence and his wife Linde; daughter Cynthia Stout and her husband Frederick; grandchildren, Christopher, Susan, Melissa, Hilary, Gunnar, Karl, Maximillian and Jake; several step-grandchildren; and step-great grandchildren. Carolyn always took pride in her children and grandchildren and their accomplishments. She is also survived by her sister, Barbara Boynton of Mercer; brother, Curtis of Augusta; and numerous nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her parents; older brother, Kendall ; and younger brother, Ralph.

Family and friends are invited to an interment service at 2:30pm, Saturday, June 23, 2012 at Friends Cemetery, Route 104, Fairfield. Following the committal, a memorial service and a light repast at 4pm at her Berry Basket Farm, 209 Valley Road, Mercer.

Carolyn loved and would appreciate flowers, but in lieu of flowers, you may make memorial donations to Riverview Memorial School, 201 Mercer Road, Norridgewock, ME 04957.

Arrangements are under the care and direction of Smart & Edwards Funeral Home, 183 Madison Ave., Skowehgan, ME.