A Celebration of Life will be held at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at Valhalla Funeral Home Chapel, Huntsville, Alabama, with Pastor Todd Owen officiating. Interment will follow at Valhalla Memory Gardens. The family will receive friends from 11:00 a.m. until the hour of service on Wednesday.
She was born June 12, 1939 to Doris M. Lumley and Sanford M. Smith in Elk City, OK. With his new Soil Science MSc, her father was there to map more than a million acres of Dust Bowl soil in OK and AK. Her family returned to Sigourney and Muscatine Iowa during the school years for she and her three siblings (Beverly, Stephen and Gloria). With her degree in Food and Nutrition at Iowa State University and a dietetic internship at Cincinnati General Hospital her career was fixed. It included stints at Mary Greely Hospital in Ames, IA; Peace Corp Teacher in Sabah, Malaysia; Thompkins County Hospital in Ithaca, NY; University of the Philippines, Los Banos (UPLB); and service directing Child Nutrition Programs in Madison County Schools and Huntsville City Schools. Carol’s service in these areas have been enhanced by her completion of her MBA degree at Alabama A&M University. She continued to keep in touch with Peace Corps friends and families through reunions and correspondence.
Carol Jean Smith and Gerald Calvin Wheelock met at ISU’s Wesley Foundation preparing and serving Sunday evening meals. They were married August 5th, 1962 in Muscatine, IA. In October of 1963 they were off to Hawaii for Peace Corp training and then to the new state of Sabah, Malaysia (formerly British North Borneo). The couple filled a gap of two years in the Sabah Agricultural Training Center staff who were in schooling in Malaysia and Australia. In 1966, the couple joined friends in Laos who helped them adopt their first daughter Celeste Chanla from a Catholic Hospital in Vientiane. Moving to Ithaca, NY found Carol back in Hospital dietetics before she, Celeste, and Gerald went back to Southeast Asia with the UPLB-Cornell Graduate Education program for research and teaching opportunities. This trip culminated in adoption of daughter Robin Soon Mi from a Christian Orphanage in Seoul, Korea.
In Madison County and Huntsville City Schools, Carol worked with equipping and staffing more than 30 school lunch rooms that served more than 20,000 students daily for 38 years. Breakfast programs in addition to the lunch program became a regular part of enhanced school attendance records during this time. Carol was also active in the Alabama State Association of School Food Service administrators. She served in several offices including President of the State Association. The Alabama program gained outstanding National recognition during Carol’s service.
Carol and Gerald have been active members of the Holmes Street United Methodist Church since their 1972 arrival in Huntsville. Bible study groups, staff-parish relations, Wednesday night dinners, shut-in visitations, and meal-on-wheels volunteering have all been rewarding. International traveling and cultural activities such as being a sponsor of Asha Kiran’s “Ray of Hope” have been very important to Carol. As an AAMU alumni Carol and her husband have long enjoyed Alabama A&M Football and membership in the Bulldog Club. The University Moto, “Service is Sovereignty” has long been an inspiration to Carol.
Carol is preceded in death by her parents and survived by her husband Dr. Gerald Calvin Wheelock, daughters Celeste Chanla Nang of Harvest, AL and Robin Soon Mi Jones (Robert) of Savanna, GA; grandchildren William Calvin (Haley) and Tyler Presley Crubaugh, Robby Gerald, Stephen Rivers, and Reese Isabella Jones. Also, brother Stephen S. Smith and sisters Beverly A. Smith and Gloria Y. Castrovillari (Ralph) and brother-in-law Russel L. Wheelock (Debbie) and Sister-in-law Bonnie S. Harmon (James). Nieces and Nephews include Abbe M. Martin and Josh N. Harmon, Kari E. Ferro (Anthony), and Bob S. Sturgis (Debbie) and their families. Other relatives include her cousins Vida, Paul, Cathy, and Fred and their families living on the West Coast.
