Class News

Today's Featured Biography

 
Carol Paris

Hi! I was born in Ballard/Seattle on October 24, 1944, to Edward and Ruth Paris. I was the oldest of five - the other four were brothers. At one time Mom had five teenagers! We moved to what is now the Shoreline area in 1955, having also lived in the Greenwood, Alderwood (now Lynnwood), and south Seattle areas.

I attended Thomas Hunt Morgan Junior High for part of fifth grade through the ninth grades. My best (and lifelong) friends were Sally Haugland (Perry Pfeifer) and Gloria Ferguson (McDaniel). Later, Sally and I would talk about our academic achievements. I played clarinet and was a member of both the band and the orchestra. I remember trying with the band to march on the wet and soggy field at Hamlin Park during one of our football games!

We finally went to Shoreline High School in the tenth grade and graduated in 1962. By then I had dropped out of school activities, due to an abusive home situation, although I did become active in my church and Youth for Christ activities. But I managed to graduate ninth in our class (tied with Patty Palmer). I took both college-bound courses and typing and shorthand, since I knew I would have to pay for college. I was pleased when I was able to drop Home Economics and take Advanced Math!

I received a scholarship to Seattle Pacific College (now University), where I spent one year. During May of 1963 I eloped with Donald Dilley to Coeur d’Alene, ID. It was my chance to get out of the house - perhaps not the best reason to get married! But Don was cute and smart and was really my chance to get out of a very protective and abusive environment and explore the great wide world out there.

We both went to UW and worked our way through, Don graduating in 1966 and me later in 1967. During our time there we had many adventures- camping, spelunking, and participating in a Presbyterian Summer Service Project in Cincinnati, where, among other things, we registered people to vote.

In August, 1966, we drove our woefully inadequate Simca to Pittsburgh, where Don started coursework at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I took training to become a bank teller at Mellon Bank, where I worked until spring, when I returned to Seattle and UW to complete my degree in English Literature. I did a year’s work in two quarters and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

I started at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1967 and began training to become a minister. Don graduated in 1969, and began work for a coalition of churches in the East End of Pittsburgh. Daughter Ruth was born in November of that year. We moved to Belle Vernon, PA the next spring where Don worked in two churches.

I continued my studies at the seminary and graduated in 1972. I passed my ordination exams in 1972 but was not ordained until 1974, when I received a call to be a part-time associate pastor for a six-church parish. The other minister and I each preached at three churches a Sunday and traded churches the next Sunday!

Of course I was the first woman minister anyone had seen. In fact I was the first woman minister belonging first to Redstone Presbytery and later to Washington Presbytery, both in Western PA. When ordained I was one of 150 women ministers in the denomination, out of 13,000. During my tenure as a pastor I have preached in over 100 churches (most of them through the seminary preaching association), and every time I was the first woman!

As life would have it Don and I were divorced in 1975. Ruthie was 5. During my time as pastor I served two years with the parish, one year as a youth pastor in Pittsburgh, and three years in a rural church, complete with an outhouse and a cemetery going back to the 1800’s.

At that point I decided to shift directions to enroll in a PhD program through both Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the University of Pittsburgh. So Ruthie and I pulled up stakes and moved back to the seminary. I pursued a doctorate in Philosophy of Religion for about five years. During that time I passed four language exams - ancient Hebrew, first century Greek, French and German, and completed coursework.

But during that time I met David Evans, also a Presbyterian pastor. We got married in July of 1979. The wedding was in his small city church - it had a pipe organ, and the reception was in my country church, complete with an accordion for entertainment! Those women could really cook! We had a cast of thousands in the wedding party and a lot of folk who came to the wedding. A great time was had by all!

Before I left the doctoral program I left the rural church and took a part time job as an academic advisor at the University of Pittsburgh in the College of Arts and Sciences for students who hadn’t yet declared a major. While there I learned about a fascinating interdisciplinary program called Information Science. I took a programming course in Fortran (punchcards included) and I was hooked!

So I changed directions again and pursued another masters degree. I graduated in 1983 with a Masters in Information Science and with seven A’s, seven A+’s and a University Scholar award to boot.

Two asides. One of my advisees was a kid named Dan Marino. He was Quarterback for the Pitt Panthers and wanted to go into the pros. Always one to do my job, I asked him what he was going to do if his plan didn’t work out. He smirked. Then went on to be an All Pro Quarterback for the Miami Dolphins!

Also while pursuing the degree I did an internship with the Allegheny County Police Department. They had confiscated a Trash-80 in a numbers raid and I proceeded to set up a database program to track guns, money and drugs for the Evidence Room. My recommendation to them was to next time confiscate a more powerful machine! By the way, there were yet no microcomputers at the University, so this was my introduction.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ruthie had completed eighth grade and David had acquired a position with Church World Service as a CROP director for Western PA and WV organizing community walks to raise money for hunger, disaster relief and refugee resettlement. The money was used for national and international projects. He was then asked to join the national staff of CWS located of all places in Elkhart, IN. So we all packed up and left Pittsburgh for the great unknown.

We lived in South Bend for 13 years. Ruth gave the nuns at St. Joe High School a run for their money and then graduated from Indiana University in South Bend with a degree in Sociology, minors in History and Women’s Studies. In the process she started a recycling program at IUSB and got into riding and showing Arabian horses. Our experiences in the horse world are a whole other story!

Among other things at CWS David produced materials for the nation-wide CROP walk program, installed computers in regional offices, and developed a direct mail fundraising program that raised a lot of money. He also helped develop the computer systems to track and manage it. I took a job as a COBOL programmer at a bank until I was offered a job as an Associate Professor at a college, teaching information science.

My boss and I designed the new computer and information science program at the college and I taught about eight or nine new classes, a few of which I hadn’t had schooling in. I lasted three years. In that time I also researched new database software for the college; I chose Oracle. I also started an internship program, took my turn at organizing speakers for chapel, and taught a summer course for high school students using beginning Pascal. All the while the college students were beginning to be required to use microcomputers for essay writing. There was no networking yet.

The next eight years I served as MIS Director for a community mental health center and turned a centralized data entry system into a decentralized system, which also served a new 60 bed psychiatric hospital built on the grounds. During this time I was also an adjunct professor at IUSB teaching programming and systems analysis. I took a year off and worked for a training company to learn more about networking. In the process I became a Certified Netware Instructor - which is worth nothing now!

In 1996 David and I moved to Albuquerque, NM, to take a fundraising job at the University of New Mexico. I became a consultant for the company of the software I supported while at the mental health center. We moved around a few times as David took fundraising jobs at other schools and institutions. We lived in San Antonio; David worked at the Texas Military Institute. From there we moved to Santa Fe; David worked at the College of Santa Fe. And then to Arlington, TX; David worked at the University of Texas at Arlington.

My work involved travel. I was on the road for 13 years working at mental health, substance abuse, developmental disability and public health agencies configuring and training on enterprise software. Our company was bought a couple of times and I needed to learn new software, no easy feat. The last two years of my employment I worked from home, supporting the accounts receivable and billing part of the software. I retired in 2012. David retired earlier but spent the next eight years doing substitute teaching in elementary schools. He loved it!

But in the meantime I had taken over my Mom’s financial affairs in 2010 and brought her from Marysville, WA to live with us after her second husband died in 2011. Both my Dad and Robert died of Alzheimer’s, and Mom had this terrible disease too. For the next ten years she was a part of our lives, sometimes here and sometimes in assisted living or memory care facilities. She died on July 21, 2021.

After I retired Mom and I returned to the northwest to help one of my brothers find a better living situation for himself. He had lung cancer and COPD, but despite treatment, he died in April of 2013. I returned to Seattle in 2015 to accompany another brother while at the hospital receiving chemotherapy for leukemia, but he passed away not even a week later.

In 2019 I learned that my remaining brother had Alzheimer’s and no one to take care of him. I went to the Lynnwood area and brought my brother to Arlington and placed him in a memory care facility. I went back to Lynnwood and cleaned out and sold his house. My brother passed away in April of 2019. The middle brother died in 1971 of suicide.

Now my birth family is gone but I have my wonderful husband and friends here in Arlington. Ruthie is doing well working at a counseling center. She is still in Indiana and has two Arabian horses she loves more than even her partner. But don’t tell him I said so!

I’ve attended the 30th, 40th and 50th Shoreline Class of 1962 reunions. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll see you at the 60th!!

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