Carol Louise Steiman

CASCO – Carol was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. 25, 1938 to Blanche and Herbert Steiman, but was proud that she was in Maine by the age of 10 months. Until she moved full time to Maine in 2009 she spent every summer, sometimes more than the summer, in Maine, living at the summer camp her parents built in 1933. There she started to learn carpentry by pine paneling the camp, helped by neighbors with experience in the craft. It was there that she learned to love the waters of Sebago Lake, swimming, water skiing, sailing, canoeing, and kayaking. She was a true water spirit. She also learned to love the people and culture of Maine.

In 1956, after graduating from Windsor High School, Carol worked at Trinity College in Hartford, becoming faculty secretary to the Department of Religion. Later she added the position of faculty secretary to the Economics Department. She had to stop being secretary to the Economics Department, switching to Urban Studies, when she married a member of the Economics Department, Neil Garston, Dec. 31, 1971. Some considered it scandalous when she kept her own name after marriage.

In 1975 when her husband took a position at the California State University, Los Angeles she agreed to move to LA provided he agreed to spend every summer in Maine (they spent every summer plus sabbaticals and more). During her time in California she kept up the connection to Maine even in the six to nine months when she was not physically present. For years she kept up a history of Sebago Haven Road for the road association.

On moving to California she did not want to go back to being an office worker. Instead, she took the carpentry skills she developed in Maine and started Carol’s Woodcrafts. She developed small items and sold them at craft shows, bringing them in cedar chests she designed and built. Using craft shows as a way of displaying her skills, she took orders for custom furniture and installations. At almost every show she met little old male woodworkers who insisted the work was too good to be done by a woman, it must be her husband’s. It wasn’t. In 1997 she realized that there was a drawback to turning a hobby into a business and that she was burned out. Except for items she made for her home or for friends she retired from woodworking at that time. She occasionally worked as a discrimination tester for a local fair housing non-profit and occasionally painted watercolor flowers.

Carol was overjoyed when her husband retired in 2009 and they moved to Maine and spent six months a year in the family camp in South Casco, on Sebago Lake. Since that camp was not suitable for winter the rest of the year she spent at their new house in Lewiston. There she enjoyed her collection of glass and crystal and the pleasures of retirement. In 2020 her health began to decline and joy was mixed with sadness. Her last years were hard, as it is for so many people.



My Long Goodbye

(August 2022-June 2023)

Neil Garston

I did a wash and hung it out, but it isn’t drying in the damp air

I sit in the living room with the TV on, switching between an

Old NCIS and a terrible movie but I can’t watch for long

I read a few pages of Tom Sawyer but Twain isn’t doing it so

I switch to Paradise Lost and read a few lines, but I can’t read more

I pick up a sculpture I’ve been trying to finish for months and put it down

I look over at the bedroom where you are still sleeping in the late afternoon

And I cry again because I know as you sleep your mind is slowly leaving

Leaving me while I wait till it’s time to make your dinner and mine

And you’ll say it’s good as you always do whether it is or not

And I will look over at you and smile and turn away and cry

And that is what I’m doing as I write this, and the screen is blurry through the tears



There will be no funeral or other ceremonies.

In lieu of flowers or other gestures consider a donation to the Good Shepherd Food Bank to which she was a regular contributor.