Carole J. Davison

Carole Jeanne Davison, 77, of Salem died peacefully at home, her sons with her, on March 2, 2019 of congestive heart failure. The recipient of a liver transplant in the late 1980s, Carole survived decades of ailments and medical complications that accompanied the immunosuppression required by her condition. We, her family, remain grateful for these wonderful “bonus years.”  Carole was born to Roy and Jeanne (née Bohlman) Mansfield in an apartment above the King Theatre in Belle Plaine, Iowa on May 21, 1941. She was the oldest of five children. She learned to cook and sew at a young age and made many of her own clothes and even designed some. This talent eventually led her to choose her college major of Home Economics. Carole’s family lived in Southern California during her grade school years. Living in a farm community, she, along with her siblings and the other kids in the area, picked strawberries and blueberries during the summer months to earn money for school clothes (she was a fast picker!). Carole was very thoughtful, helpful and kind to everyone, including her sister and brothers, from her early childhood through all of her adult life. She was involved in the high school chapter of the Red Cross and also sang in the church choir. Her talents included playing the piano, and, later in college, the violin.  She always had a beautiful smile and a gentle sweet spirit. The family settled in Gresham, Oregon during her middle school and high school years, and she graduated from Gresham Union High School in 1959. When an older teen, she advanced to cannery work. This is where she met her future husband, Ed, who also was working there the same summer. Ed and Carole were married on June 8, 1963 in Portland, Oregon. They would spend the rest of their lives—over 50 years—together. In the early years of their marriage, however, they were frequently apart as Ed traveled to various parts of the United States to fulfill his obligations to the US Air Force while Carole worked on her degree. After a year or so at Oregon State University, Carole returned to Iowa to finish her degree, earning a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics Education from Iowa State University in 1964.  After Ed’s time in the Air Force, Ed and Carole moved to Colorado so that Ed could go back to school. With Carole typing his papers, Ed earned an MBA from the University of Colorado. Ed subsequently joined Goodyear International in Ohio, where Carole gave birth to their first son, Ty, in 1969. Goodyear sent the family to Sydney, Australia for 2 years then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where their second son, Bret, was born in 1972. Upon returning to the US, Ed worked as a Stock Broker in Pueblo, Colorado while Carole focused on their young boys. Ed’s run as a stock broker was brief, and the family moved to Oregon in the mid-1970s. After a couple of years in Eugene, the family moved to Salem in 1977, as Ed took a job as an educator with the Oregon Department of Corrections. Through the early ‘80s Carole worked as a Social Worker and at Liberty Elementary School as a community coordinator.  During the mid-80s, Carole was diagnosed with primary biliary cirrhosis, the same condition that claimed the life of her father though neither drank alcohol. Her condition necessitated a whole liver transplant, a procedure that had only five years previously been considered an experimental surgery. The transplant was performed at Baylor Medical in Dallas, Texas in 1988, and, given the 30 years she lived beyond the event, can only be considered an enormous success.  The cost of that success was a life of immunosuppression. This meant a daily regiment of medications to keep her body from rejecting the implanted liver, religious hand washing to combat germs, and a necessary aversion to crowds where Carole had greater risk of contact with various viruses and bacteria. It also meant that her body could not fight off conditions that fully health individuals could, and she survived ovarian and lung cancer (twice).  Despite all this, Carole was never one to complain. She simply adjusted to limitations life presented. If she could no longer travel internationally as she did in her youth, she could certainly experience art and culture through the television and the Internet, and so she did.   After Ed’s retirement in 1998, Ed and Carole made trips to California, Montana, and Iowa, visiting family. Closer to home, the couple enjoyed the company of their  grandkids, other family, and friends. She is preceded in death by her husband Edward, who passed away in 2016. She is survived by her sons, Ty (Erin Lilly-Davison) and Bret; her grandchildren, Jonah, Elisha, and Jillian; her sister, Linda (Eakin) and her brothers, Richard, Doug, and Steve. Private interment will be held at the Willamette National Cemetery in Portland. We remain ever grateful for all the medical professionals and caregivers who attended to Carole’s needs over the years.