Carol Ann Casserly

Carol Ann Casserly -- style icon, devout Catholic, and beloved of countless sellers of coffee, nurses, and friends made family -- ended her final encore and passed on to join her dear brother Steven on Saturday, January 27.

Carol was born in Brooklyn, NY on April 15,1959 (that’s not a typo) to Josephine Janice (Schmidt) and Joseph Francis Casserly. Joseph was the sixth of seven children born to Martin Casserly (County Roscommon, Ireland) and Jane Wilson (Yorkshire, England). He served as a Sail Loft Petty Officer among the US Navy’s Seabees during World War II and died suddenly when Carol was ten and her youngest brother Robert was less than a year old. Carol’s mother Janice was the eldest child of Hans Schmidt, German immigrant and BMT Motorman, and Helen Kochan, daughter of Polish Galician immigrants.

A talented seamstress, Janice handmade the dress Carol wore the night she shared a limousine with Mikhail Baryshnikov and turned down his request for a date. Her survivors have no intelligence on what Carol wore to Studio 54, but they cannot rule out the silver fox coat Robert Wagner had made for his daughter. When he arrived to collect the coat from a small shop in Athens, he spotted Carol and decided she should have it. From furs to fresh pots of coffee to friendship, Carol had a way of getting your best. She didn’t demand it; she simply gave you hers and you knew nothing would be wasted on her.

Carol studied Fashion Business Management at the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) in Manhattan. Before working at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street, she served tiki drinks at the famed Hawaii Kai and spilled an entire cocktail-filled pineapple into the lap of a man about to head downstairs to see Cats in the Winter Garden Theatre. He wasn’t even mad. After moving to Bel Air, MD in 1994, Carol worked in Men’s Fashion at Macy’s (formerly Hecht’s), where she met lifelong friend Stephen Moore.

In 2001, Carol began receiving hemodialysis at the DaVita clinic in Bel Air and expanded her family to include generations of dearly-loved nurses, dietitians, technicians, social workers, and fellow patients. Not only did she defy all reasonable estimates for life expectancy with End Stage Renal Disease, but also, after a catastrophic car accident in 2007, she defied her doctors’ predictions (and explicit instructions) by walking again (in heels).

Carol has gone on to join Steven and put the finishing touches on a fabulous place for those who now mourn her, including her adoring children Eric (Bel Air, MD) and Lauren Faber (Durham, NC); devoted brothers by birth and sisters by love, Deborah (York, PA), Joseph and Andrea (Farmingville, NY), Robert (Farmingville, NY), and Patricia Governara (Staten Island, NY); nieces and nephews Drew, Brett, Matthew, Christopher, Mary Jane, Joseph, Olivia, and Zachary Casserly and Vincent and Daniel Governara; and her dear, heroic Rick Zankowitz.

A visitation for Carol will be held Friday, February 2, 2024 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM and from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Schimunek Funeral Home, 610 W MacPhail Rd, Bel Air, MD 21014. A funeral mass will occur Saturday, February 3, 2024 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at Saint Ignatius Church (Historic), 533 E Jarrettsville Rd., Forest Hill, MD 21050. Followed by Interment at Bel Air Memorial Gardens.