Marie-Louise Carl

Marie-Louise Carl passed away Sunday, November 19, 2023 peacefully in her sleep at Vista del Monte in Santa Barbara, California. She was born a twin in Denmark on February 4, 1933 to Axel Harald Carl and Karen Marie Skovgaard-Peterson. They raised her and her four siblings in Hellerup, Denmark. She lost her father in 1936 to lung cancer. Her mother remarried Paul Ryder in 1938. Marie-Louise lost her mother toward the end of World War II to ovarian cancer.

As a seven year-old in 1940, Marie-Louise lost neighbors and half her class to the boatlift of Jews to Sweden and watched the Nazis invade Denmark. After World War II ended, her stepfather served as Denmark’s first ambassador to Germany and moved her and her four siblings to post-war Germany. In the late forties, her stepfather moved the family from Germany to San Francisco to serve as Consul General to the United States.

Marie-Louise learned English quickly and attended high school in San Francisco. She worked her way through college at San Francisco City College and San Francisco State University. Her favorite summer job was serving as a hostess at the Grand Teton Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. She enjoyed the outdoors, hiking frequently and collecting wildflowers.

She earned a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University in the City of New York’s School of Social Work in the late fifties. While a graduate student, she and her classmates conducted some of the fieldwork in Harlem that lead to the creation of HeadStart. After graduating from Columbia, she served as a houseparent for foster youth and as a social worker with Child Protective Services.

In her twenties, she joined the American Scandinavian Foundation, which sponsored a summer group rental in Quogue, New York. She made lifelong friends during those summers. She also met Peter Wisner, who she married in 1965. They had three children, a dog, two rabbits and numerous cats. Marie-Louise stepped back from social work in 1968 to raise her children. The family lived in Yonkers, Mt. Kisco, Bedford and spent summers in East Quogue, New York before moving to Santa Barbara in the mid-seventies. Marie-Louise enjoyed being a mom, leading a Brownie Troop, attending swim meets and sports games, and hosting large birthday parties (no classmate could be left out). In 1976, Marie-Louise joined Santa Barbara County’s Child Protective Services as a social worker where she worked hard to improve the lives of countless children until she retired in 2003. In the late seventies, her marriage to Peter Wisner ended in divorce.

Marie-Louise is survived by her children Marianne Wisner, Shelly Machell and Paul Wisner; her sons-in-law Kendrick Royer and Simon Machell, three grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her parents, stepparents, and siblings.

Donations in Marie-Louise’s name may be made to CALM through amccague@calm4kids.org. A small family service is planned for May 2024.