Carolyn Wageneck

Carolyn Louise (Purvis) Wageneck, 80, passed away at peace on November 20, 2023 at her home in Santa Barbara, California.

Carolyn was born on August 21, 1943, in Arkansas City, Kansas, to Claude and Gladys Purvis. She and her older siblings, Fran and Bud, were raised in Kaw City, Oklahoma. It was in the small town of Kaw that Carolyn developed the loving, smart, and humorous personality that she was known for her entire life.

Carolyn was the quintessential people person– she never met a stranger. As a child, she loved to sing and dance, cook, play basketball, and card games. She took on her first job at the age of nine as the town’s afternoon switchboard operator, working from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Holding this job until she graduated high school, Carolyn connected people to each other, took and passed along important messages, and chatted with people who were lonely. Those who know her understand that she continued to serve others in those ways as an adult.

Carolyn began participating in 4H at the age of 10, winning local, regional, state, and national awards in various categories, including cooking, sewing, flower arranging, meat grading, and raising livestock (she loved her sheep Checkers and Scrabble). As a senior in high school, she was the Oklahoma 4H Champion in Public Speaking, earning the honor of attending the 4H National Congress in Chicago in 1961.

After graduating valedictorian of her high school class of seven, Carolyn attended Oklahoma State University. One summer afternoon in 1963, as she hung her feet off the balcony of her apartment in Ponca City, OK, a young man named Bob Wageneck (in town for the summer working for Continental Oil Company) drove by. He told his friend,

“I want to meet the girl attached to those feet.” He did, and to his good fortune, Carolyn agreed to go out with him. They were married at the chapel of Oklahoma State University on June 21, 1964. Carolyn and Bob began their marriage in Evanston, Illinois, while he completed graduate school at Northwestern. They soon relocated to Dallas, Texas, where their first two children, Frances and Robert, were born. After the family moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1972, they welcomed their son Lael in 1975.

For Carolyn, the role of mother was her highest calling. From day-to-day feeding and care to life’s big events, Carolyn did it all – room mother, stand-in mom for friends who were in need, offering hugs, birthday bashes, athletic events, artistic performances, and so much more. Indeed, even as Parkinsons’ and colon cancer had limited her physical and cognitive abilities, she would ask her kids what she could do to help them.

In the mid-80’s when college tuitions came due, Carolyn began working as an administrative assistant in various organizations around Santa Barbara, including local churches and UCSB. Carolyn ultimately retired from the Santa Barbara County Education Office, having served in various capacities, including as administrative assistant to the County Superintendent.

Carolyn had an especially close relationship with her Grandmother Grace (GG), who helped her mother raise the family after her father died when Carolyn was just 10 years old. So it was a very special day in February 1999 when she became a grandmother herself. She loved her grandchildren immensely and loved being their Granny! She was so proud of the young adults they had become.

Carolyn had an active social life with the Red Hat Society, the Giggling Grannies, women’s Bible studies, feeding the members of their church home groups, Sunday lunches with friends, or family meals followed by card games or dominoes! (She would want everyone to know that she won her final round of dominoes a month before she died).

Carolyn was active in many Santa Barbara Church congregations over the past 51 years, including Calvary Baptist Church, The Living Faith Center, Calvary Chapel, and for the past seven years, Southcoast Church. She was devoted to her church communities. She served by singing in church choirs, organizing meal trains, participating in prayer chains, providing pre-marital counseling, sitting in the nursery, or cooking meals at church camps.

Carolyn is survived by her husband Bob, daughter Frann, sons Lael and Rob, her daughters in-law Bonnie Beedles, Katherine Lowe, and Kim Wageneck, and grandchildren Annemarie, Elijah, Ezekiel, and Megan Wageneck. She is also survived by her brother-in-law Bill Wageneck, sisters-in-law Mary Joneson, Barbara Gardner, Peggy Patton, Suzanne Wageneck and her many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her parents, her siblings, and her grandson Taylor Hudson Wageneck.

A celebration of Carolyn’s life will be held at 11:00 am on December 1, 2023 at Southcoast Church, 5814 Cathedral Oaks Road, Goleta.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to VNA Health (Hospice) https://vna.health/.