Carolyn “Peg" Coulter

1922 - 2022

Carolyn "Peg" Coulter passed away on May 29, 2022, at the Lutheran Home at Kane. She was born December 4,1922 in Sunbury, Pennsylvania to Helen Dando Hoffman and Harry Hoffman. She was given the name "Peggy" by her older sister Shirley when she was a baby. It was the name she was known by the rest of her long life. Her life was full of experiences that shaped her appreciation and enthusiasm for life.
Following high school, she entered nursing school at the Protestant Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia. When she graduated, she worked at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City. In 1945 she watched the Ball Drop at Time Square ushering in the New Year and then promptly enlisted in the Army Nursing Corp. Once deployed, her unit was one of the first to arrive in Tokyo following the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She became a First Lieutenant while in Tokyo and there she met the love of her life, Bill Coulter. They married in 1947 and in 1952, following "Doc's" graduation from Temple Dental School, they moved to Kane.
Active in the community and a citizen of the world, she was a champion for UNICEF in the 1960s. She served on the Kane Chamber of Commerce, United Way, YMCA, Nurse's Association and Kane Hospital Auxiliary. She traveled the world with Bill through Rotary International and was one of only a few non-Rotarians to be awarded the Paul Harris Fellow. She served on the HUD Board following Bill's death in 2002 and was celebrated as Kane's Citizen of the Year in 2008.
Her experience in World War II inspired her patriotism and she was proud to be a Veteran. She was in service to others through her nursing skills at the Lutheran Home in the 1970s, worked at the Food Pantry delivering Meals on Wheels and helped neighbors and friends in many small ways whether taking care of a child or bringing soup to a convalescing friend. She was a member of Tabor Lutheran Church while she raised her family and then returned to the Presbyterian Church which was the church of her youth. She lived life with a sense of style, influenced by her mother who was a buyer for a woman's clothing store. She was creative and artistic, expressing herself in oil painting, decorating her home, parenting her children (oh, those summer circuses in the backyard!) and finally as a memoirist.
She lived independently in her home until January 2017 when a stroke made that impossible. The family is grateful to the loving care she has received in the Kane Lutheran Home.
She was preceded in death by her husband William "Doc" Coulter, her sister Shirley Irvin and her son William "Skip" Coulter. She is survived by her daughters Candis (Marco) and Susan, her grandchildren Carmen (Chris) Irving, Quinn Stewart and Katie (Chris) Stewart and great grandchildren Grace, Jack, Karys, Kalin and Coulter.
In lieu of flowers, her wish was for donations to be made to the Mission Fund (Presbyterian Church) and Rotary International projects for water wells in Third World countries. A donation to the Lutheran Home at Kane would also be appreciated. A private service will be held for the family.
Online condolences can be expressed at www.cummingsfh.com.
The Cummings Funeral Home, inc. is in charge of services.