My wife, Carole Ann (McCollum) Conger, 82 of Sac City, IA, passed away Saturday afternoon, April 26, 2025, at the memory care unit of Addington Place of Carroll in Carroll, IA. I promised Carole I would keep her at home like she did her parents. After six years, I was unable to hold on for just twenty-four more days. I was with Carole for most of Friday and Saturday. I told her how much I loved her, how we met, the places we lived, the friends we had, the trails we walked in the state parks, the pets we had. I read her some from the Bible but my glasses kept getting messed up. I caressed her arms, held her hands and kissed her on her cheeks, forehead, and the tip of her nose. I told her it was okay to go. I yelled up at God to take her, to end her suffering. Between the two of them they got the job done. I was so fortunate to be with her at the end.
Carole was born in Sac City to Harry “A” and Vera Marie (Schnirring) McCollum across the street from the now Hutch’s Café, during a blizzard on February 25, 1943. She was placed in a dresser drawer with a pillow over her for warmth.
Carole was the only and last 8th grade graduate of rural one-room Jackson #7 School (now on the Sac City museum grounds) two miles southwest of Sac City. She told me how at the school she was the protector of the little Rubendall boys. She graduated from Sac Community High School in 1961 and completed two years at State College of Iowa (now University of Northern Iowa) in Cedar Falls. She would have completed more but she and I were standing across from one another atop the stairs going down to the dining hall for supper on February 26, 1963. Carole had short dark hair, wore a long-sleeved red bandana blouse, a black wool skirt and crinolines beneath, white bobby socks and white tennis shoes. I thought she was kind of cute. This was the day following Carole’s 20th birthday. After 10 evenings of library dates, I asked Carole to marry me. It took her another 10 days to say “Yes”. I rejoined the Navy three weeks later and was sent to school in San Diego. I came home for a weekend in June (well beyond the 200-mile limit for weekends) and Carole took a leap of faith, and we were married on the 15th at the United Methodist Church in Sac City. She did not see me again for seven weeks. Over the next several years, we started getting to know and love each other.
Carole had several employments as she relocated with me during the last 26 years of my 30-year plus Navy career. She was instantly hired at every place she interviewed for a job at. She was an appliance store credit clerk and a general contractor office manager in Norfolk, VA; the lead assembler at the SONY television manufacturing plant (Carole could manufacture a SONY color TV by herself) in Rancho Bernardo (San Diego County) CA; refunds clerk, garden department manager, and mini-market manager with the Navy Exchange System in Pearl Harbor HI; and buyer with the Army/Air Force Exchange System in Alexandria, VA. She received numerous “Employee of the Quarter” awards while at the last three employments. Carole’s last employment was her dream job as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service in Virginia Beach, VA, from June 4, 1988, through March 31, 2005. Again, she was “Employee of the Quarter” several times during this career.
During “our” time in the Navy, we always lived in the local community (never on base) in Alexandria and Norfolk, VA; Charleston, SC; Jacksonville, FL; Poway (north San Diego County), CA; and Mililani Town, (Oahu), HI. We met life-long friends everywhere we lived. While in Jacksonville, we (mainly Carole) were emergency care foster parents for nine children of various ethnicity and ages one through thirteen. We moved to Sac City in May 2005 so Carole could care for her parents (both had Alzheimer’s disease) in their home, which was a joy for her to do. Harry died in April 2007 and Vera in April 2009, both at home.
Carole loved all animals and provided a home for over 300 cats and several dogs during her life in Sac City. During this time, we spent over $250,000 on spaying, neutering, other surgeries, annual vaccinations, food, litter, finding homes for and euthanasia and cremations of Sac City’s orphaned cats that seemed to know where to go for a warm safe home. Carole also picked up leftover corn in area fields to feed “her” deer. She also cared for the raccoons, opossum, woodchucks, chipmunks and fox families that lived on our hillside property. As did her mother before her, Carole loved flowers and grew many varieties.
Carole’s mother, Vera, developed Alzheimer’s in her mid-70’s and lived until age 91. Her father got Alzheimer’s in 2005 and died two years later. It never dawned on us that this same thing could happen to Carole, but it did. Her brothers realized that Carole was developing dementia before I did. She was in her mid-70’s also. Our family physician told Carole in mid-2019, “With both your parents having Alzheimer’s disease, Carole, you didn’t stand a chance.” As Carole did for her parents, I took care of her “at home”. She went on hospice with the wonderful caring professionals at St. Croix Hospice on January 21. From that point on, I had the help of nurses, a CNA, chaplain, and a social worker nearly every day of the week. Finally, on March 28, the St. Croix Hospice team sat me down and told me that in just two months the health of both of us had deteriorated to the point it was time for Carole to go to a memory care unit. Poor Carole was oblivious to the conversations and what was happening. She went from chasing and holding her cats on one day to being pretty much bed ridden the next. For 24 days Carole was under the care of the wonderful staff at Addington Place of Carroll. Carole enjoyed her Alzheimer’s years loving her many cats, reading books until finally, when she reached the bottom of the page, she could not remember the top of the page, working in the yard and following me everywhere. She was fearful when she lost sight of me. Carole survived four malignant cancers but she could not beat Alzheimer’s disease.
Carole and I knew each other for 62 years and two months and were married for 61 years and ten months. When I told her I loved her, she told me she loved me more.
Other survivors include her older brother, Harry Allen (Susan) McCollum of Tea, SD; younger brother Charles Lee (Sima) McCollum of Auburn, IA; sister-in-law Clare (Jim) Frevert of Ames, IA, and Naples, FL; brother-in-law Larry (Lin) Conger of East Deery, NH, and Dade City FL; sister-in-law Janice (Bill) DePover of Davenport, IA; very close family friends, sisters Kim (Mike) McLendon of Fancy Gap, VA, Pam (Wayne) Cribb of Chesapeake, VA, and Nancy (Jim) Stevens of Carrollton, GA; a handful of first cousins, and several nieces, nephews, other extended family member and friends.
Carole was preceded in death by her parents, and in-laws Lonnie and Bertha Conger.
