Carol Joy Knight

Carol was a long-time resident of Swarthmore, PA and Hamburg, NY. Born on November 29, 1941 in Springfield, NY, to parents, Lawrence Jager Eckhardt and Erika Anna Richert Eckhardt, she was the oldest of four siblings. She graduated from Eden High School as a member of the National Honors Society in 1959 and continued her education, graduating from Wells College with a degree in English in 1963.

While in college, her younger brother set her up on a date with his residence advisor at Cornell University. Shortly after graduation in 1963 Carol married Dr. David H. Knight and the two moved to Philadelphia PA where David joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School. Carol became a High School teacher in the Philadelphia school district.

In 1968 Carol and David welcomed son Eric into the world.

Carol and her husband quickly advanced in the growing sport of White-Water canoeing, competing in the C2M mixed gender canoe class. They became National Champions in Slalom and Wildwater river racing in 1972 and again Wildwater National Champions in 1973. Later in 1973 at the World Championships in Muotathal, Switzerland they won a team silver and became the first Americans to with gold at an international competition. They were the World Champions in the individual C2M White-Water Canoe Slalom competition.

After a knee injury, Carol retired from racing and became a coach for the US canoe and kayak team in 1974 and 1975 when she also served as the American Canoe Association (ACA) National Slalom and Wildwater Committee Chairman. She liked to recall how she failed her college PE canoe class when she was blown into shore by strong winds only to become a World Champion a decade later.

Following her divorce in 1976, Carol got additional education and training in marketing and communications and she and son Eric moved to Swarthmore, PA. There she took on the project of restoring a Victorian house complete with a tower and wrap around porch.

Boeing hired Carol as a communications consultant to improve internal communications between teams of engineers and production during the development of the V-22 Osprey tilt wing military aircraft. As one of the only women involved with such projects in the 1980s, she was able to relate and gain trust with engineers working on laminated rotor blades by sharing her hands on experience building fiberglass and carbon fiber racing canoes.

While returning a volley during an indoor tennis match, Carol sustained a head and neck injury from colliding with a wall. She felt this held her back.

Carol had many, many different jobs which helped occupy her curiosity; high school teacher, sales and marketing consultant, executive secretary, medical text book editor, writer, baked goods broker, seminarian and a late return to teaching high school, among others.

Carol was full of ideas and ambition. She was always working on a project and loved to do research. She was an imaginative out of the box thinker with irrepressible optimism. One afternoon she was doing research at the Free Library in Philadelphia when she realized she didn’t have enough money for the train fare home. She considered her predicament and remembered paying gas money for her son’s school car pool to the son of an executive working in the city. This gave her the idea to march into the headquarters of Bell Atlantic (later Verizon) and navigate past the executive secretary to ask the CEO, Ray Smith, for a lift home. She hadn’t considered that he had his own driver, but they were picked up at the curb and she got her ride home.

Late in life she moved back to her childhood home in Hamburg NY to care for her mother. Carol was happy to be back in her home town spending time with classmates and friends over lunch and at church.

Many people found conversations with Carol engaging, fascinating and inspiring. She had a cheerful and disarming personality, presenting a big smile and smiling eyes. Carol let her hair grow till it was more than half her length and had barely any grey even late in life. She had some unusual communication styles including engaging with what she called, “active listening”, whereby she would make inaccurate assertions of fact or assumptions about the person she was speaking with and then learn by hearing them correct the record. She was known to be encouraging to those struggling with adversity and helped to lift people’s spirits.

One time congregant of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Swarthmore Presbyterian Church and Riverside Salem UCC Church; Carol considered herself a person of peace.

Carol was preceded in death by parents Lawrence Jager Eckhardt, Erika Anna Richert Eckhardt, sister Christa E. Eckhardt, brother Roger L. Eckhardt and former husband Dr. David H. Knight.

Carol is survived by son Eric David Knight of Berwyn, PA, sister Margaret Eckhardt Pedersen, of Colorado Springs, CO, one niece, one nephew and many cousins.

A graveside service and celebration of life will be held at the family’s convenience. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to Roswell Park Cancer Center, PO Box 631, Buffalo, NY 14240 https://give.roswellpark.org/