Carolyn Blanche Brown

1925 - 2018

Carolyn Blanche Hollenbeck Brown, 92, of Dover, died peacefully Tuesday, July 10, 2018.

Born July 23, 1925, in Hudson, N.Y., she was the only child of the late Edgar Dwight Hollenbeck and Carrie Mae Van Deusen Hollenbeck. Her family line stretched back to the founding of New Amsterdam in the 17th century.

Mrs. Brown grew up in Jamaica, N.Y. during the Great Depression, with her father working several jobs to support his family. Her artistic abilities developed during this time, and she found work doing background art for animated cartoons, as well as a stint at Vogue magazine. She also worked at several other jobs, including theater usher and elevator operator, to make ends meet.

After her father's death in 1951, Mrs. Brown and her mother moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where she enlisted in the U.S. Army. Two years later, while stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, she married U.S. Air Force airman Walter E. Brown Jr. of Tower City, Pa. She left the service before the birth of the couple's first child.

In the ensuing 14 years, Mrs. Brown accompanied her husband on a number of assignments, including Guam, Greenville, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and finally, Dover. She raised the couple's five children while her husband was away on temporary assignments for the Air Force, including a one-year tour in Vietnam.

Mrs. Brown's interests were wide and varied. She was a patron of the former Dover Ballet Theater, often designing advertising and set backdrops for its productions. She was "Popcorn the Clown" as a member of the Clowns of Delaware, and later took up an interest in Middle Eastern dance, performing as "Hashiba" in many venues throughout the years.

An accomplished artist, she was the illustrator for "Tour in the Tropics or Guam is Good," a best-selling cartoon book published by the Pacific Stars and Stripes, and was author and illustrator for her own book of belly-dance cartoons, "Has Anyone Seen My Harem Pants?" Mrs. Brown also provided fashion artwork and cartoon illustrations for other books, magazines and newspapers, including the Dover Post. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, her one-panel cartoons, "Homemade Brownies" and "cb's People," appeared in the Delaware State News and Delaware Morning News.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, who died Nov. 17, 1993; and two sons, U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Steven Wade Brown, who died Aug. 13, 1977; and Kenneth Paul Brown, who died May 8, 2018.

Mrs. Brown is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Jeffrey A. and Renate Brown of Hartly; and two daughters and their husbands, Lauren A. and Glen Swanger of Ellicott City, Md., and Lisa G. and Reid Bailey of Alexandria, Va. She also leaves behind three grandchildren and the spouses of two, Michael S. Brown of Hartly, Sharla E. and Derek Dashnaw of Summerville, S.C., and Jessica L. and Joshua Wright of Knoxville, Tenn.; five great-grandchildren, Jonathan Dashnaw and Brandon Dashnaw, both of Summerville; Cheyanne Brown of Hartly and William and Jude Wright of Knoxville; and a cousin, Sheila Curwen of Washington state.

Arrangements are by Torbert's Funeral Home, Dover. Interment will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, July 19, beside her husband at the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Bear.