Mary Carolyn Rudd

Mary Carolyn Clausen Rudd, age 94, died Monday morning, June 16, 2014, at Foxdale Village in State College, Pennsylvania.
Carolyn was born July 21, 1919, in Hamilton, New York, to Bernard Chancellor Clausen and Mary Elizabeth Darnell Clausen. She grew up in Syracuse, New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
She graduated from Westtown Friends' Boarding School, received a Bachelor of Science Degree from Smith College in 1941 and a Master of Nursing Degree from Yale School of Nursing in 1944.
Carolyn married Ralph Rudd in 1941; he died at Foxdale in 2007.
Carolyn traveled with Experiment in International Living to Germany in 1938, living with a German family with whom she remained in contact most of her life. She remained a world traveler and enthusiast for internationalism all her life, visiting France and most of Europe, Russia, China, Guatemala, and Alaska. The Rudd family made many trips by car, often camping, in the US and in Canada.
Carolyn and Ralph (an attorney, Ohio legislator, and human rights activist) made their adult lives and raised their family in Cleveland and Willoughby, Ohio, until 1992, when they "retired" to an apartment in the Foxdale community. They were members of the Cleveland Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and of the State College Friends Meeting.
Carolyn worked as a Registered Nurse in Philadelphia and in Cleveland in 1945 to 1946 and again from about 1960 to 1990, in sites including Lake County Memorial Hospital West and Kaiser CHF Clinics in Cleveland. She earned her Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Certificate in the 1970s and finished her career as a research nurse at University Hospitals of Cleveland, working with Drs. Kennell and Klaus to study bonding between hospitalized premature infants and their parents.
Always an activist, a feminist, and a pragmatist, Carolyn was a participant and leader in many organizations including the Cleveland Church of All Peoples, American Civil Liberties Union, PTA, American Field Service (student exchange), Lake County Mental Health Association, Cleveland Friends Meeting, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and League of Women Voters. In State College she served on the Tree Committee and volunteered for Voices of Central Pennsylvania and for Center County Womens Resource. At Foxdale Village, she was Resident Board Chair and served on committees including Health Care, Programs, Food Service, Marketing, Diversity, and the Green Committee.
In 1963, Carolyn and Ralph and their daughter Darnell participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (later known as the "I Have A Dream" event in honor of the historic speech made there by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Carolyn earned notoriety in 2011-12 for her efforts to save an oak tree scheduled to be removed for a Foxdale expansion. The tree could not be saved, but Foxdale residents and staff gave it a good farewell vigil and a bowl made from its trunk is beautifully displayed in the Foxdale Bridge Gallery.
In her widowed years, Carolyn acted on her yearning to soar in several delightful ways. She took a glider ride, flew with a son-in-law to the top of Mount McKinley on her 90th birthday during a trip to Alaska, and arranged a hot air balloon ride for herself to celebrate a later birthday. The family is not sure whether she ever went hang-gliding!
Carolyn was practical, frugal, generous, nurturing, self-reliant, and caring for others in need, to the very end of her life. During her lifetime she had "adopted" several foreign students with whom she maintained fond contact, and she "adopted" several Foxdale retiree colleagues as well, always preferring to give of herself, and hesitant to ask for anything.
When asked by a great-grandson what her superhero symbol would be, Carolyn answered "Zero. Because I don't want to be better than anyone else."
Carolyn was a knitter for most of her life, making and giving away socks, scarves, hats, and mittens. In her last years, as long as she could see, she knitted and constructed remarkable patchwork blankets using leftover yarn from the Foxdale crafts room. She named a lacy green-and-white scarf for a crafts exhibit: "Spring Around My Shoulders."
Carolyn is survived by her four children; Darnell Rudd Mandelblatt (David), Herbert Finley Rudd II, Corlies Anna Rudd Delf (Greg), and Rachel Clausen Rudd Christensen (Eric); by thirteen living grandchildren; and by eleven great-grandchildren.
Memorial activities will be announced later.
Contributions in Carolyn's name may be made to Foxdale Village, 500 East Marylyn Avenue, State College, Pa. 16801; or to Friends Committee on National Legislation, 245 Second St NE, Washington DC 20002.