Caroline Marie Isaacs

Caroline was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 7, 1946 to John Dove Isaacs and Mary Carol Isaacs nee Zander. With her older sister, Ann Katherine, the family moved to Encinitas, California as her father was working at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The family grew to six with the birth of her brothers Jon and Kenneth. These were happy years, with many friends and activities, continuing when the family moved to Rancho Santa Fe in 1959. Caroline excelled at piano, gardening, and her academics, graduating from Bishops School in 1964. She attended UCLA before transferring to U.C. Berkeley, graduating in Mathematics, and then obtaining a Ph.D. in Geology at Stanford University.

She furthered her work with research in geology at the USGS leading to important contributions on the Monterrey formation and other geological topics. She deeply enjoyed travels with her mother, including to China, New Zealand, Sweden, and Greece.

Caroline retired from the USGS, and transitioned into the role of caregiver in her mother’s later years at her mother’s home in La Jolla, managing the many needs through 2008. Afterwards, living in Clairemont California, she enjoyed time with friends, and reading in her extensive library of wide genres of fiction and non-fiction, and long walks on the area beaches. Her deep exploration of genealogy throughout her life has left a legacy of information and insight of rare extent. She particularly loved her cats and their companionship and deeply felt their passing.

She is pre-deceased by her parents, and survived by her siblings and their spouses Ann Katherine Isaacs and Arturo Pacini of Pisa, Italy, Jon Berkeley Isaacs and Mary Lu Brandwein of San Diego, California, Kenneth Howard Zander Isaacs and Julie Noel Marmon Isaacs of Walla Walla, Washington, and nieces and nephew Alessandro Marcello Isaacs, Jessica Ann Marie Isaacs, and Francesca Katherine Pacini, and their children.

A private service will be held and a celebration of life will be announced in the near future.