Carol Joan FitzGerald

Born January 28, 1937, in Connecticut, to William and Barbara FitzGerald, Carol spent her childhood in Meriden, where she was raised Catholic and attended St. Rose Catholic School at St. Rose of Lima Church. She left school at 16 when she married Donald Butler. Carol became a mother at 18. Following his military service, including time overseas in Germany, they began the Maine chapter of their lives. Maine would remain home through much of the next several decades.

Carol's working life unfolded in chapters, with long periods devoted primarily to home and family as well as years spent working outside the home. As a young mother, she worked the midnight shift at a woolen mill in Oxford, Maine. She later worked for Sylvania in Standish and, during her years on Mount Desert Island, held seasonal jobs as a restaurant hostess in the Bar Harbor area.

In the 1980s, Carol found work that was particularly meaningful to her when she became manager of The Diet Center in Bangor. She took great pride not only in the responsibility she had earned, but in guiding and encouraging people as they worked toward healthier lives. After moving to Florida, she went on to manage The Diet Center in Fort Myers.

When the Diet Center chapter ended, Carol returned to school in her early 60s and earned her GED, an accomplishment of which she was deeply proud. She then continued her education through formal CNA training and testing, becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant. She spent the final years of her working life providing care to people in their homes before retiring.

Caring for others, however, was part of Carol's life long before it became her profession. Over the years, she cared for family members and friends through serious illness and the end of life. She cared for her second husband, John Smallidge, through cancer until his death in 1985, cared for her sister and others who needed her, and many years later cared for her husband, Bruce McDonough, through the final years of his life. Whether she was helping someone find a healthier path, sitting beside someone who was ill, or providing hands-on care, helping others was a thread that ran through much of Carol's life.

After John's death, Carol remained in Bangor, where she and Bruce got to know one another in one of those ordinary ways that becomes a family story. Over morning coffee at the counter of a local diner, conversation between them grew into a relationship and eventually a marriage. Their life together later took them to Cape Cod and eventually to southwest Florida.

Carol's faith had its own journey. Raised Catholic, she spent many of her early adult years away from active church life. In her 40s, while living in Bangor, she became a born-again Christian at Bangor Baptist Church under Pastor Herman "Buddy" Frankland. Her Christian faith became one of the constants of the rest of her life. In Florida, she was a member of McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers for many years. During the final several years of her life, Richmond Avenue Baptist Church in Lehigh Acres was her church home, where Pastor David Soden was her pastor.

Carol had long said that she did not fear death. Her faith gave her confidence that when her life ended she would be with her Savior, Jesus.

A serious faith did not mean Carol was always serious. She had a twinkle in her eye and a wonderfully mischievous sense of humor. She loved a good prank and took real delight in catching someone off guard. She sometimes described herself, with a knowing smile, as "dumb like a fox." Those who knew her well will remember that playful spark, her sense of mischief, and the pleasure she took in a good laugh.

Family mattered deeply to Carol. When she married Donald, she became part of the large Butler family in Maine. Donald was one of nine children, and gathering together became part of the rhythm of family life. Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and other occasions meant plenty of food and houses and yards full of family. As the years passed and those large gatherings became less frequent, Carol missed them deeply and often spoke of those days around the holidays.

That love of family carried into the generations that followed. Carol was a proud grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of four, including a great-grandson expected soon.

After Bruce's death, Carol entered a chapter unlike any she had known before. For the first time in her adult life, her days were truly her own. She wanted to embrace that freedom, even as she sometimes struggled to know how to live a life so different from the one she had always known. She was still finding her way when a sudden illness took her life only a few months later.

Carol was preceded in death by her parents, William and Barbara FitzGerald; her siblings, Peggy Ann Davis and Daniel FitzGerald; her former husband, Donald Butler; her second husband, John Smallidge; and her husband, Bruce McDonough.

She is survived by her children, Donnita Butler and Joseph Butler and his wife, Faith; her sisters, Barbara FitzGerald and Irene Franke; her grandchildren, Sara Conklin, Nicholas Ackley, Dawn Guynn, Donald Ackley, Amanda Murphy, Joseph Butler, and Barbara Butler; and her great-grandchildren, Clayton Ackley, Kira Ackley, Markus Bryant, and a great-grandson expected soon, Jackson Bryant.

Carol's life cannot be summed up by any one role. She was a young wife and mother, a homemaker and a working woman, a manager proud of helping others find healthier lives, a woman who returned to school later in life, a caregiver both by profession and by nature, a grandmother and great-grandmother, and a woman sustained by a faith that remained with her to the end.

Through all the chapters and changes of her life, she remained someone who loved having family gathered around her, who cared for people when they needed her, and who never quite lost that twinkle in her eye.

Visitation will be held on Saturday, August 29, 2026, at Hodges Funeral Home at Lee Memorial Park, 12777 State Road 82, Fort Myers, Florida, beginning at 9:00 a.m. The funeral service will follow at 10:00 a.m. Interment will follow at Lee Memorial Park Cemetery.