Carol Paul

Madison / Wausau: Carol Noel Paul, age 72, met The Lord on November 3, having lived the last days of her life at Heritage Memory Care in Middleton, WI. She was the oldest child and only daughter of John and Mildred Noel. Carol grew up in Wausau, WI where she graduated from St. James Grade School and Newman High School. She attended and graduated from Edgewood College in Madison, WI with a degree in Elementary Education. During the summer of her junior year at Edgewood, Carol answered the call for a lay apostolate mission to teach religion to children at a Catholic grade school in Penasco, NM. When Carol graduated from Edgewood in 1964, she returned to Penasco to teach for a year. When her year in Penasco was finished, Carol loved NM so much that she relocated to Santa Fe, NM and was hired as an elementary teacher in the Santa Fe public school system. An Army nurse who knew Carol, and who was stationed at Sandia Base in Albuquerque, NM, arranged for Carol to go out on a blind date with Lt. Michael Paul, originally from Middleton, WI who had just been assigned to Sandia Base after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Officer Training School in San Antonio, TX. Carol and Mike fell in love instantly. They were engaged in half a year and were married on December 30, 1967. They were married for 45 years.
In 1981, the Paul Family moved to Oshkosh, WI where Carol taught second and third grades at Sacred Heart School for 15 years, followed by several years of substitute teaching in the Oshkosh Public School System. Her talents when she wasn't teaching included sewing, quilting, and knitting. She particularly enjoyed knitting newborn baby caps for the Christ Child Society which she helped organized.
Carol was preceded in death by her parents, and by two of her five brothers: Jerry and Richard. She is survived by her husband, Michael, her three children: Jennifer (Mark Banik), Steven, and David (Sarah), and by her three grandchildren: Nyah, Mollie, and Taryn Banik. Carol is further survived by her brothers: Thomas (Mary Lu), John (Patricia), and Kevin (Betty), and by many nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be from 6pm until 8pm on Sunday, November 10, 2013 at the Brainard Funeral Home, 522 Adams St., Wausau, WI. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11:00am, Monday, November 11, 2013 at Church of the Resurrection, 621 2nd Street, Wausau, with visitation from 10:00 am until the time of Mass at the church. Interment will follow in the family burial plot at Rest Lawn Cemetery. A luncheon will subsequently be served at the Wausau Country Club for family and friends.
Special thanks are given to the staff at Heritage Memory Care and Sebring Memory Care for the love they have shown to Carol as her Alzheimer's disease progressed, and to Agrace Hospice Care for making Carol's final days peaceful and pain-free. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Association in the hopes that, someday, a cure will be found for this most tragic of human maladies.