Cecile Merle Carleton

Cecile Merle Carleton, 102, a resident of Coupeville, died on Jan. 10, 2008. At her request, no public service will be held.

Cecile was born on March 6, 1905, in Butte, Mont., to William and Minnie Mallahan. She attended grade schools in Whitehall, Livingston and Butte, Mont., and a county school near The Dalles, Ore. She graduated from Butte High School as valedictorian of her class.

Cec continued her education (the first in her family) at Intermountain Union College in Helena, and there met her future husband, Linus J. Carleton, where they were dormitory cooks. On Aug. 15, 1925, in Missoula, Linus’s father, Rev. Ralph Carleton, married them.

Cecile and Linus began their long, happy marriage of almost 62 years in Galata, Mont., where Linus was principal and teacher, and Cec helped him with school projects and provided room and board for two of the teachers.

Cec and Linus lived and worked and raised two daughters, in Stanford, Moccasin, Helena and Missoula, where their third child, a son, was born. Linus became a professor, then Dean, at the University of Montana’s School of Education. He also taught adult Sunday school classes in the Methodist churches they attended, while Cec handled the Moccasin school lunch program, planned and helped execute all dinners held at the Helena church and cooked for the Methodist Wesley House students (near the University in Missoula), where she was adopted by those students as House Mother.

When Linus retired, Cec and he worked together as Fort Missoula Museum docents, and drove for Meals on Wheels. Reminiscent of their college days in Helena, they cooked together for the Poverello Center, feeding the hungry. In 1984, the governor of Montana honored them with a plaque for their lifetime of outstanding community service.

Linus died in 1987, and a few years later, Cec moved to Coupeville. There she continued her active membership in the Coupeville United Methodist Church and in PEO Chapter IJ.

Cecile was a remarkable woman, known for her cooking and gracious hospitality and her ability to create a warm haven in any of her homes. She will also be remembered for her inquiring mind, her liberal bias and her indomitable spirit. She was an inveterate walker until she was 100. People in Coupeville spoke of her as that little white-haired lady, moving quickly, head down and eyes on the road, carrying her cane. She played a sharp Bridge game, had perfect pitch and was blessed with a photographic memory.

She was the repository of family information such as names, relationships, dates and locations, and she, unerringly, called the people around her by name. At age 85, she began writing by hand a book about her life, entitled “I Remember, I Think.” She completed all 225 pages of it in 1996, at the age of 96. At age 98, she began writing down (in a ledger, alphabetically) the titles of all the songs she knew both the words and the tunes of. In 2007, that number had reached the startling total of 985 titles, and she and her daughter, Kay Drew, spent many hours singing those songs, in Cec’s room in Harbor Care of the Regency of Oak Harbor.

Cec is survived by three children: Kay Merle Drew (wife of Lelan) of Coupeville; Trudi May Peek of Port Orchard; and Linus Mark (husband of Corliss) of Tualatin, Ore. Cecile leaves eight grand children, eight great-grandchildren and one great, great-grandchild.

Memorials may be made to the Linus Carleton Scholarship Fund of the University of Montana, Missoula, Mont.

Cecile Merle Carleton will be greatly missed by her family and the communities she and Linus so loved and enjoyed.