Carol A. and Robert J. Russell

Carol A Russell (Mair) born December 4th, 1948, has recently left this world at the age of 74 years to reunite with her husband Bob Russell who passed away just 14 months ago. He was born January 27, 1944, about 5 years before his future wife of 52 years. They were both born in Ontario, Canada and both were the middle children of two brothers. On the Russell side there was Bill, Bob, and Ross while coincidentally Carol’s brothers were Bill and Bob.

Bob grew up on the ice rink and ball fields playing hockey and baseball and continued his sports into his 70’s while Carol played a bit of basketball but wasn’t as into sports, unless it was watching her kids play on their teams. She directed her ambition towards entrepreneurship and absorbed a great deal of business sense from her father Stuart who worked in real estate. She followed this route as well and carried out a variety of career paths often times simultaneously. She taught night school adult typing classes, worked in secretarial (office administrative) roles, and was even awarded “Secretary of the Year” for her local county of Kitchener/Waterloo. She sold appliances, owned, and managed a water treatment store, and going all the way back to 1968 at the age of 20, prior to meeting Bob, she started a personnel business offering HR and recruitment services. She titled it with just her first initial to most likely avoid unwanted gender discrimination. She brazenly wore a pants suit to one of secretarial jobs at the local high-school and was sent home. She pushed through a variety of hurdles beyond wardrobe choice to be successful in her career and business endeavors that consisted of 40 plus years in the water treatment industry. She was on the board of the Eastern Water Quality Association and has won multiple achievement awards from that organization, she founded Water Treatment and Accessories which is currently running and being operated by 2 of her 4 children; bottom line- she was a hustler.

During these years she and Bob also raised 4 children that were born 5 years apart of each other creating an age span of 15 years between youngest Katie Russell and oldest Laura Witmer (Russell). The two middle children are Emily and Daniel. The first 2 children were born in Canada and then the family uprooted in 1980 to the US and made Lancaster County their home. Bob felt he had a great opportunity to work with a company in the states and felt good about the people he would be working alongside. He had a great judge of character and time proved this to be a wise choice as he had a very satisfying career working with Kinetico as a regional rep. He coached and mentored his colleagues on all types of things personal and professional to be successful. This the company that also exposed Carol to founding her company in selling specific Ultraviolet bulbs to meet the needs of different water treatment systems. Despite her business success she was always frugal with her personal spending unless it was on others or tipping her waitstaff, sometimes double or triple an appropriate amount.

Bob and Carol met and fell in love quickly and married in the summer of 69 less than one year upon meeting. Together they supported each other’s independent pursuits and paths and were able to take risks together and practice solid work ethics to become successful as individuals as well as a couple and parents. Carol took care of a lot of details in life, some with more traditional gender roles of cooking and cleaning, but also the major pieces of family management that involved finances and business decisions. She also had space to nurture her children along with so many of their friends. She brought so many in under her wing. When Bob was traveling Carol managed all components of family and work life as well including taking kids to sports, activities, the roller rink, movies, mall, and bowling alley often while juggling more than one outside of the home job. She did manage to find some time in the 80’s where she played on a few bowling leagues and loved that. Bob prioritized family fun playing backyard ball with all the kids, boating, BBQing, and playing golf. When socializing with his hockey, work, and golf buddies, he was always talking and laughing. It seemed the laughter was always a few decibels louder after one of his own jokes. His sense of humor was more slap stick while Carol’s more dry and witty.

They made a lovely life together and their home was always welcome to guests and served as a hub for out of town guests, kids, and their friends, work drop ins, and eventually grandkids. They left behind 6 grandchildren who all had a very individual and special relationship to each of them. The first being Owen Witmer (16) son of Chris and Laura Witmer; Lucas (15), Elsy (11), and Violet (8) children of Emily and Dan Phillips; Skyler (9) and Wesley (2), children of Dan and Joelene Russell.

The last few decades Bob and Carol enjoyed their time in PA with grandkids and other friends and family while also spending a good chunk of the winters in Vero Beach, Florida where they met some dear friends and shared their retired years boating and fishing for Bob and lots of pool time and games for Carol. In addition to those friendships, they also maintained close relationships from their roots in Canada all the way through their lives despite it being over 40 years since they relocated to PA.

Family members preceding their deaths are their parents and Bob’s older brother, Bill. They had an extraordinary life getting to travel and visit beautiful places including the life highlight trip to Italy. They also found great contentment in the everyday simple activities, Bob drinking coffee with the paper or mowing the lawn and Carol hanging laundry on her clothesline or wiping down her counters after feeding someone something she just cooked up. They lived very healthy and full lives until each of their last months. They had health issues that resulted in each separately experiencing a rapid decline, so it seemed they never really became old. They lived good full lives and Carol didn’t live long without Bob. Just 6 weeks after he passed, she had an aortic dissection so almost quite literally her heart split. Bob and Carol-Forever young.

There will be a Celebration of Life from 6 to 9pm at the Barn at Rock Ford January 20th.

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to Hospice & Community Care who provided care to both Bob and Carol. Hospice & Community Care

Excellent private home health care was also provided by Live-in Care of Lancaster, and highly recommended.