Carolyn O. Robison

Carolyn O. Robison, 93, passed away Monday, Aug. 13, 2012. Born in McRae, Ga., she moved with her family to Vero Beach where she attended the elementary school across the street from the family home. Her father, William Homer O’Neal, insisted his oldest child secure her future by becoming a school teacher. Early in Carolyn’s college years at Florida State College for Women, an upper class Zeta Tau Alpha sister became Carolyn’s mentor. Zeta sisters nicknamed Carolyn “Bozzy” for James Boswell, the youthful biographer who followed the aging Samuel Johnson. After graduating in the Class of 1940 from Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee with a bachelor’s degree in education, Carolyn returned to Vero Beach, teaching fourth graders in the same school she had attended in her youth. She preferred teaching the boys others teachers found too rambunctious. In 1940, Carolyn married Ivy Randolph Robison in Vero Beach, a marriage that would survive nearly 72 years. "We were just meant for each other," Carolyn said a few anniversaries back. They met during their college years when the boys from the University of Florida would drive up from Gainesville for dates in Tallahassee. An engineering student from Lakeland, Randy owned a car and offered rides to his Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity brothers for gas money. Carolyn and Randy met at a Friday night dance on her campus. "That's where all the girls were, and that's where we went," Randy laughingly told a reporter for a 2000 article on the couple’s 60th anniversary. On Saturday, the two had lunch together. On Sunday, they went to church together. "I knew he was the one for me when we knelt for Communion together. We were both Methodists," Carolyn remembered. Before their marriage, Randy finished college, accepted his commission as an Army officer and ran a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Georgia. He switched during World War II to what would become a 30-year career in the Air Force. The Robisons would raise sons George and Jim as military brats with tours throughout the U.S.A. and Europe before returning to their home state in 1966 when Randy retired as a colonel. "We had 38 homes in 30 years," Carolyn told a reporter in 2000. "We lived all over the country and seven years in Europe." There were homes from California to Washington, D.C., a chateau in France and, later, an apartment in Germany while Randy was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in what then was the capital of West Germany, Bonn. At each station, Carolyn gladly accepted her role as an Air Force officer’s wife and opportunities to display her passion for entertaining guest in her home.

But retiring home to Florida was always their goal.

They chose Orlando, and Randy, at 50, started a real-estate company specializing in military relocations, then expanded to building homes for military retirees, often engaging Carolyn to make interior design and decorating suggestions. But something was missing: travel. The Robisons sold their comfortable Southern Oaks home in south Orlando in 1976, bought a condo and hit the road. They didn't miss a state. Road trips took them to Alaska and Mexico. They flew to Hawaii and cruised through the Panama Canal and Scandinavia. Although a brain hemorrhage slowed Randy in 1986, the couple still traveled. Every summer they drove to their cabin in Maggie Valley, N.C. Eventually, Carolyn and Randy, needing family support, lived with Jim and his wife, Robyn, for several years. Randy began having multiple falls and hospitalizations. After one episode, they moved into an assisted living facility that offered skilled nursing when needed. Two years later, Randy required skilled nursing full time. Soon, too, Carolyn’s long battles with chronic pains would overcome her carefully crafted cheerful outlook. The following years brought more severe medical challenges, recoveries, set backs and pain. Through it all, Carolyn remained Carolyn, always aware of her appearance, always careful about her nutrition and always willing to instruct others. Her body was failing her, but she relished the retelling every time anyone expressed surprised that she could possibly be 93. In her heart, she was still that youthful ZTA sorority sister who had found a handsome officer to share life.

Carolyn was a member of the Zeta Tau Alpha Orlando Alumnae Chapter, founded during her ten-year tenure as district president of Florida. She also was a member of the Central Florida Stroke Club, the Officers’ Wives Club and the Ruth Circle at First UMC Winter Park.

Besides her husband and sons, (and their wives, Joann Robison of Austin, TX and Robyn Robison of Casselberry), Carolyn is survived by her sister, Carmen O. Sheldon Scanlon of Louisville, CO.; grandchildren, Travis, Ashley, Angela, William (Randy), Jennifer and Julie; great-grandchildren, Isabella, Zoe, Jackson, Alison, Reid and Tristan and extended family and friends. The family will receive friends at the visitation to be held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19, at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Funeral Home. Senior Pastor/Minister of Preaching, Dr. Bob Bushong will lead funeral services at 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 20, at the chapel of First United Methodist Church of Winter Park, followed by a brief interment service and catered refreshment and light meal at Woodlawn. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Carolyn’s memory to the First UMC of Winter Park Memorial Fund.