Carol Anne Hovey

In the early evening of June 6, Carol Hovey’s time in her body came to an end. Her mother, who died in precisely the same spot in the front room of Carol’s home, and who had been her guide over the last two difficult days of Carol’s life, led her to that last moment. Prior to her last few breaths she opened her eyes for the first time in a number of hours to gaze at her son Tyler as her spouse and friends filled the room. Her last few days were filled with suffering, but her death was beautiful.

Carol’s life began on February 20, 1952 in Dallas, TX where she was born the youngest of three children to James A. Hovey and Helen (Driscoll) Hovey. Her sister, Marcia Hovey-Wright of Muskegon, MI, and her brother, James Hovey of Rome, NY survive her. The family soon moved to Buffalo, NY where Carol spent her pre-school years, then her father’s career took them to Ramsey, NJ until that career moved Carol and her Mom to Pinehurst, NC for her senior year of high school - a difficult move for her. Yet her time there was characterized by something that would become a pattern in Carol’s life - she made a really good and lasting friendship. Carol made friends - it’s what she did.

Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY was Carol’s next stop for a bachelor’s degree and a two-year post graduate employment in the sociology department where she had majored. Again she made friendships that remained important even in the last days of her life. She travelled to Madison, WI where she earned a Masters in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin with a specialty in gerontology. Her capacity to form helping relationships through compassion and empathy began to form there in an internship at the VA Hospital, and, of course, she made lasting friendships.

Her life in Concord began in the fall of 1978 when she accepted a position on the newly-created Elder Services Team at Central NH Community Mental Health (later re-named Riverbend), starting her practice as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and psychotherapist. Quickly establishing herself as a networker both in the community of services to elders and within the fledgling comprehensive community mental health center staff, she was trusted and connected from the start. On the strength of those connections, she was asked in 1986 to join the Womankind Counseling Center, a feminist collective counseling group where she made her professional home until 2015. Many of her collegial relationships there went on to become a true sisterhood. She had a vision of these “sisters” surrounding her bed in her final hours with laughter, tears, story and songs - this vision became reality just a few hours before her death.

Always seeking to deepen her professional awareness and ability to help and heal, Carol completed a two-year certificate in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy while working at Womankind. This experience was enormously helpful in Carol’s claiming her remarkable and natural talent for creating and holding healing spaces for her clients. Because so many of the women who came to see her were suffering from multiple traumas, Carol also became trained in E.M.D.R, a therapeutic approach to trauma that helped

many in Carol’s practice toward healing and wholeness. In an era when group psychotherapy was in decline, Carol also sought training and supervision that enabled her to have an ongoing psychotherapy group for women in mid-life - an important therapeutic community for the many women who cycled through for over 20 years.

After a notable and substantial career at Womankind, Carol moved her practice to an office over the garage at home. In the years prior to this move Carol had become a Certified Yoga Trainer at Sharing Yoga in Concord, so the small room adjacent to her office that could accommodate her and up to six people became a yoga studio where she did trauma-informed yoga with clients and also had a weekly “friends and family” yoga class for a number of years.

Carol was a feminist. She believed in equality for everyone and, after sitting in therapy with so many women whose minds and bodies had been violated, she was particularly committed to a woman’s right to the self-determination of her own body and mind. Her mother Helen Hovey, who had graduated from college in the late 1930’s, was a strong believer in women’s rights; and her sister, Marcia Hovey-Wright, a clinical social worker, former State Representative and County Commissioner, is a prominent feminist and political and social activist in Michigan.

As important as her professional career was to Carol, her relationships were even more important to her. She has many genuine friendships. Some years after a loving but brief marriage to John Zellers (who, along with his family, has remained a dear friend throughout her life), she co-created a unique and powerful friendship, love relationship, and marriage with Tim Wildman who had been her first colleague at Riverbend years before. They have been married for 36 years, and have lived at the center of many interlocking circles of family and friends here and around the country.

From the beginning of Carol’s life with Tim, she loved his children Abby (Konopasky of Takaoma Park, MD), Rachel (Wildman of Somerville, MA), and Matt (Wildman of Athens, NY) with steadiness, tenderness, and compassion. In the third year of their life together, Carol and Tim welcomed their own child, Tyler Hovey-Wildman of Portland, ME. Anyone who knew Carol knew also that Tyler was the pride and joy of his Mom’s life from his birth literally until her last breath. The family grew to include partners - Aaron Konopasky to Abby, David McGee to Rachel, Jacob Nunes to Matt, and Lucia Hauty to Tyler - and welcomed grandchildren - Annalise and Carly Konopasky and Simon and Kate McGee. Carol also had a special relationship with Tim’s brother, Jim (Brooklyn, NY), and his late-wife, Janet Jacobson. This blended, shape-shifting family has been blessed by Carol’s love, attentiveness, and what she referred to as her unfailing “common sense.” Dearly loved by all, even those loved ones unable to be physically present for Carol’s rapid passing were able to say good-bye to her individually on the phone before she passed from consciousness.

At her core, Carol was an athlete. One of the things most likely to trigger her ire was recounting having been in high school and college before the advent of Title IX that purports to assure equal access to sports for young women. An accomplished doubles tennis player, Carol loved nordic and alpine skiing, lake and lap swimming, kayaking, running, aerobics, biking, hiking, golf, and in recent years pickleball.

One of Carol’s health providers recently observed that she found Carol to be more deeply connected to her own body than anyone she’d ever treated before. Carol lived in her body. The last five years of her life have therefore been particularly challenging - a year of treatment for melanoma in 2021, an ankle replacement in 2022, shattering of the other ankle in a bike accident with trauma surgery and a long recovery in 2023, and the intense arrival of malignant metastatic melanoma from 2024 until her death. The treatment since 2024 has included immunotherapies, chemotherapy, and whole brain radiation. She engaged all of these like the talented and disciplined athlete that she was with PT and daily workout regimens. She did guided imagery meditations daily and had her yoga practice as long as she was able. Even when most impacted by the illness, she walked up to two miles daily until the last two weeks of her life. She didn’t go to war with her cancer. With her athlete’s body, her yoga mind, and her deeply Christian heart she engaged the illness, creating a relationship - like she did with everyone and everything. She will remain an inspiration to many.

Carol and her family are grateful to so many. Her sister, Marcia, brother, Jim, nieces, Kara Rozell and Katherine Wheeles, and nephew, Chris Chessman, though distant geographically, have been unfailing sources of love and care. Cousins from California to Maine have shared her journey with true concern. Abby, Rachel, Matt and their families have held her in a sustaining love. Her brother-in-law, Jim Wildman, and the community of musicians here and in Brooklyn and New Orleans that Carol helped foster for Tim have reached out constantly. Her beloved First Congregational Church family and Pastor Emilia Halstead have focused the love of the Divine onto her journey without fail. And friends, friends, friends. Cards, emails, meals, visits, prayers, Caring Bridge comments, laughter, tears, and more laughter - so much love and light.

Her oncologist, Dr. Shirai, and his entire care team at Dartmouth Cancer Center, and palliative care specialist, Stephanie Krasinski, APRN, have together provided more than just medical treatment - they have embodied hope, compassion, consummate skill, and humanity. Granite VNA Hospice, while present in Carol’s journey for only 24 hours, were instrumental in facilitating Carol’s final stepping through the doorway into the next room on her spiritual journey. There has literally been an entire community holding Carol in a communal heart through these times. Thank you.

A service celebrating Carol’s life led by Pastor Emilia Halstead will be held on Saturday, June 13 at 1:00 PM at First Congregational Church (nesting in Wesley United Methodist Church) at 79 Clinton St. in Concord. A reception will follow in the church’s Hannah Hall for all to greet Carol’s family. Interment will be at a later date in a private ceremony.

Gifts in Carol’s memory can be given to The Sheila Stanley Community Counseling Fund at Womankind Counseling Center, Concord, NH (the fund provides subsidies for underinsured or uninsured psychotherapy clients) or to First Congregational Church in Concord where Carol co-founded the Jazz Sanctuary ministry with her husband and Pastor Emilia in 2015.