By Eilene E. Guy, American Red Cross volunteer

After a career of more than 50 years in nursing and education, Carol McConnell came to volunteer with the American Red Cross because she wasn’t ready to retire from caring for people.

Her fellow nurse volunteer, Melissa Seibert, said her friend embodied the compassion of Red Cross founder Clara Barton.

For years, the two of them staffed first aid stations at Pro Football Hall of Fame events, where Carol’s nursing skills matched her caring personality. “She had beautiful white hair; she wasn’t skinny or hefty, just pleasantly plump. She walked with her shoulders back and her chin up. Her demeanor just said, ‘I care,’ Melissa said.

“She had a soft touch; she was soft spoken. That put people at ease.”

But Carol was no one-trick nursing pony. She began her Red Cross volunteer career in 1993 in disaster services. When she wasn’t comforting people displaced by a home fire or other calamity, she was often at the office of the Heartland, Stark and Muskingum Lakes chapter.

She was always ready to volunteer for an activity related to the Red Cross mission, retired chapter executive director Kim Kroh said. “She loved to do outreach, to talk to people at festivals and health fairs. She was such an active volunteer; she was so kind, a gentle soul.

“She was very involved with our campaign to install smoke alarms. She would go out every week,” Kim said. “Whenever we had a Sound The Alarm event to canvass neighborhoods to install alarms, she was always involved.”

Carol was known for being reliable. She never quite got the hang of signing up on line for a project, but, “When she said she’d do something, you knew she’d be there,” Melissa said.

That’s what alerted her fellow volunteers on the morning of March 26, when Carol didn’t show up for a smoke alarm install activity. Her Red Cross partners called the local fire department to do a welfare check.

Carol had passed away quietly at home, at the age of 90.

“I was shocked,” Melissa said. “Last year, she said to me, ‘I can’t wait to work with you again next year (at the Hall of Fame festivities)’… When I read her obituary, I couldn’t believe she was 90!

“Red Crossers are a family, you know,” she said as she choked back tears. “We were devastated.”

Carol’s family summed up her personality in her obituary: “She never met a stranger and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know new people.”

The Red Cross gave Carol an outlet for her caring that never faded with the years. She is truly missed.