Carol Dianne Lewis

Carol D. Lewis was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. Her father, William Leslie Stevens, and mother Myrtle Eloise Stevens, along with her grandparents built a farm in the area known as Bellview; this farm was the family’s means of subsistence. Through this agrarian lifestyle, Carol developed a love and appreciation for family, land, water, and hard work that shaped the rest of her life. Carol was born the youngest of five children. With her brothers Pete and Johnny-Ray, and her sisters Robbie and Fay, she grew up living off the land. As her mother was in poor health, Carol was raised primarily by her older sister Robbie, with whom she had a deep, lifelong relationship. After graduating from Escambia High School in 1963, she quickly started a family of her own in a home built on the family land.

Carol worked 38 years as a dedicated civilian employee for the Department of the Navy. In the course of those years, the last 18 were spent working at Naval Education and Training Security Assistance Field Activity (NETSAFA) as a GM-13 Foreign Military Specialist. Other positions at NETSAFA included Security Assistance Budget Analyst; Auditor, Supervisor Security Assistance Accounting & Budget; and Country Program Manager. While a Country Program Manager, Carol served as both FMS Case Manager, as well as the International Military Education and Training Program Manager. She managed major training projects in the Central Command, notably the Kuwait Air Force Enlisted Aviation Maintenance Program and a ship transfer to the country of Bahrain. The ship transfer training project for Bahrain is particularly noteworthy as it included not only the training of a ship’s crew but developing a navy for Bahrain. Carol was a special guest of the CNO of the Bahrain Navy and the Crown Prince when the guided missile frigate BANS SABHA arrived in Bahrain----the first Bahraini naval ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. In the Pacific Command, her noteworthy projects included NFO training for Singapore; Professional Military Education for Brunei and LCAC in-country training for Japan. Carol represented the US Navy at numerous in-country meetings with US Embassy representatives and foreign military. Carol retired from her distinguished civil service career in 2005.

In 2005, Carol was introduced to the practice of Centering Prayer. While she had been a student of the Scriptures with a deep faith in God for a long time, she felt a pull to go beyond words, concepts, imagination, anything that could be perceived, and just rest in God. She began the Contemplative Journey into a deeper relationship with Christ, starting the process of transformation into the person God had created her to be. In 2010 Carol initiated the call to others in the contemplative community that resulted in the formation of Contemplative Outreach of Northwest Florida/Pensacola. With vision, drive, and energy, she served as chapter coordinator until 2017. Carol was blessed with an unusual combination of gifts for this role: she was a visionary yet imminently practical, creative yet unbelievably organized. Above all, Carol connected with others on a deeply personal level and was not afraid to reveal her true self. She wholeheartedly loved her friends and fellow travelers and invested so much of herself in each one.

Carol is survived by her sons Jon Hernandez and Doug Hernandez, daughter Tonya Hernandez Milkie, granddaughters Antonia, Catarina, Angelica, and Natalie, daughters Susan Bearden, Dianne Schultz, Jeannie Ritter, and son Melbourne Lewis, grandchildren Chyrel, Cindy, Robert, Sarah, August, Abraham, Samuel, and Tally.

Carol was preceded in death by her husband Marwood Lewis, and her parents.

The funeral mass and interment will be held at Christ Episcopal Church at 4:00pm on Friday, October the 12th. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial gifts be made to Contemplative Outreach of Pensacola (COPNS) and mailed to COPNS, 4044 Longwood Circle, Gulf Breeze, FL 32563.