Carole Lee Blackmer
August 01, 1934 - June 27, 2015
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Carole Lee Blackmer
August 01, 1934 - June 27, 2015
Obituary
Blackmer, Carole Lee, from Lake Forest CA and Gillette WY, passed away from natural causes on June 27, 2015. Carole was born in Freeport Illinois, August 1, 1934 to Frank and Viola Kamrar. Her maternal grandparents, Ludwig and Caroline Trunk, helped raise her until the age of 12. Her only sister, Joyce, was born when she was 6 years old.
Carole attended elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse and always maintained good grades. She loved to ride bikes, listen to music and as a child she would sing songs on the radio. Carole attended West High School in Rockford Illinois, where she met her future husband, and graduated in 1952.
On September 10, 1955 Carole married her high school sweetheart, DeLyle Blackmer. They went on to have 4 children, Lynn, Lori, Dirk and Lisa whom they raised in Illinois and then California where in 1966, they settled in Garden Grove.
In 1968, Carole was divorced. She married second husband, Skip, in 1970 and was widowed on December 25, 1981. In 1973, she started college and graduated with her BA in Literature and Manpower Management from Cal State Long Beach in 1980. Carole starting working at the El Toro Marine Base in 1974 where she worked her way up to Supervisory Labor Relations Specialist. She was one of the last people working on the base when it closed and everyone jokingly told her to bring the flag out when she left. She had many wonderful lifelong relationships with people that she met while working at the El Toro Marine Base. She was also on the board of directors for the MCAS Federal Credit Union, eventually attaining the position of President.
After a 25-year career in Civil Service, Carole moved to Wyoming near her son. She worked for the District Court for several years before fully retiring.
As an adult, Carole was an avid reader, amassing an impressive collection of crime novels. She also enjoyed playing cards. Carole loved to travel and especially enjoyed her trips to Germany and Italy.
She was preceded in death by her parents, grandparents, husband Skip and dear friend Dot Barrett. She is survived by her son, Dirk (Tammy) Blackmer; daughters, Lynn (Rory) Allen, Lori Rahimzadeh (Marco Grammatica) and Lisa (Matt) Coulson; 7 grandchildren; 8 great-grandchildren; sister Joyce (Don) Moline; many nieces and nephews; dear friends Linda and Richard Banks; Jim Carson; her Wyoming friends and her former spouse DeLyle Blackmer.
The family wishes to extend special thanks to the memory care staff at Brookdale, San Juan Capistrano and St. Joseph’s hospice, especially Robin and Jo, and volunteer Yoon for their wonderful care of our mother.
Our beloved mother and grandmother, greatly loved and greatly missed.
Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, July 7th at 10:30 a.m. St. Kilian’s Catholic Church, Mission Viejo CA. Graveside services immediately following. Reception afterwards.
13 responses to Carole Lee Blackmer
Lori Rahimzadeh says:
July 6, 2015
Mom for you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than the spoken word can tell. Love you and miss you. Lori
Roger Blackmer Girls says:
July 8, 2015
To our Cousins and their Families,
Our hearts are with you all on this very sad day. We remember Aunt Carole as a Mom, a Grandmother, and a wife but mostly as our Aunt. We can think back to us being little girls running in and out of your house on a Saturday night just after watching the end of the Disneyland fireworks and trying as hard as we could to chase down the last of the fireflies. Our Parents would be in the living room playing cards and talking loud, drinking cold beer and having fun. Aunt Carole would be in the kitchen making food and putting it on the dining room table for everyone to enjoy. Kids could be heard all around the house and yard with happy voices, having fun and waiting to get the last piece of watermelon. We still hear the wonderful sounds of happiness in our ears. Each Christmas she could be found in the kitchen; the smell of her cookies teasing each of our noses. She would be in that kitchen making 10 dozen cookies at a time. It was a little kids dream to have all the people you loved in one spot, happy and eating hot cookies. Aunt Carole would work away while the other adults would be in the living room talking, laughing and telling old stories and she would just smile in a happy way.
Aunt Carole was a good Mom, and good Aunt and a good person; she put up with all the noise, the kids running all over her house and most of all; the non-stop Grandpa sing-a-longs. I wonder if she started to hate “Bye Bye Blackmer”? Aunt Carole never said a mean word to us, she just let us play and have fun. How many times did she put up with the sleepovers, the kids running in and out of the house looking for containers to put the fireflies in, or the songs? Best of all she never yelled at Holly for chasing Lynn through the glass doors! We love her and thank her for all those wonderful memorie. We couldn’t have had them without her.
So Dear Cousins, we cannot know how you feel right now but know that you are not alone. We are with you in love, sorrow and our sweet memories of a wonderful person that gave each of us a part of herself, her love. What we know for sure is that she left us too soon! Our memories of our Aunt and your Mom will tie us to each other forever. So when you miss her and want to talk, we will listen. We will laugh with you or cry with you because those shared memories bond us together.
“When the heart grieves over what it has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.” (Sufi Epigram)
We love you. Thank you for sharing your Mom with us!
The Roger Blackmer Girls:
Linda, Marcia, Holly, Marie and Alberta
Sandra Carpenter says:
December 30, 2015
My mentor, my coach, but most importantly, my friend. It was Carole who saw more in me than I ever thought possible and who started me on my HR career. I will miss you and love you always. –Sandra Carpenter