Carol M. Erwin

Carol Miriam Erwin was born on January 19, 1942, in Caledonia Minnesota, the middle child of five in the family, and passed away March 12, 2014 in Brownsville, Texas after a brief battle with cancer. When she was young, she enjoyed sewing, scrap crafts, and was musically inclined at an early age, playing the clarinet in grade school. She attended Caledonia High School, was active in the school band, in which she played the oboe, and sang second soprano in the girls glee club and the mixed chorus. During the summers of the late 1950's, she worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor and enjoyed painting with water colors and oil paints. She was a finalist in the National Merit Society and was valedictorian of their senior class, graduating in 1959. Carol subsequently entered Macalester College in St. Paul, where she played the bagpipes and studied biology, with a minor in French and secondary education. She soon became engaged to her high school sweetheart and they married immediately after her graduation. When she was unable to find a teaching job, Carol worked as a secretary in Winona, Minnesota, for a time.

Carol went on to medical school at the University of Minnesota. She put herself through school by working as an assitant dietitian, lab technician, medical transcriptionist, licensed vocational nurse, and by borrowing money and obtaining scholarships. Her last six weeks in medical school were spent in a small town in Minnesota, Onamia, (population 540) learning general practice. She stayed in a big house with four nurses who claimed to be Sisters of St. Francis. Carol soon after enlisted in the Navy.

Carol has always liked warm weather and now proceeded to find a more salubrious climate in which to perform an intership. The Navy Hospital in San Diego seemed ideal. Carol did one year of emergency room work while waiting for a surgery residency. The year that she waited, she played clarinet in a Dixieland band in San Diego, after which she entered the Naval Regional Medical Center in Oakland to satisfy the residency requirement.

After spending nine years in California, the Navy sent her to the Philippines and then on to Guam, where she learned to scuba dive and spent many happy hours exploring the reefs around that pacific paradise. She then returned to California to do a vascular fellowship, and was subsequently sent to Jacksonville, Florida. After her time in the Navy, she decided to settle down with her two cats and resigned her commission to enter private practice. She settled in Brownsville, Texas, where she resided with her two adopted children and practiced surgery. The viewing will be from 6p.m. to 8p.m on Saturday, March 15, 2014 at Funeraria del Angel Buena Vista and the funeral will be held at the First United Methodist Church at 1225 Boca Chica Blvd. Brownsville, Texas (956) 546-5364 at 1:30p.m. on Sunday, March 16, 2014 followed by internment at Buena Vista Burial Park.