Carol was born in Racine, Wisc., and graduated from Pratt Institute in New York in 1943. She was a wife, mother of four, artist, pilot, and resident of Bennett Road.  She was a wonderful neighbor—always ready with a laugh and a joy to be with—and was a great role model for children.

While stationed in Washington, D.C. with her Navy husband, they owned a plane but no furniture for their apartment. She was an avid pilot; she later gave flight instrument lessons at Marlborough Airport, was licensed to fly 727s, and with her husband built a wood two-seater plane designed by Burt Rutan, called a VariViggen. That plane, N99VV, is still flying out of Helena, MT.  Carol also flew gliders and received her seaplane rating from Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a best-selling fictional book published in 1970 about life and flight.

“By the time I was in high school,” said her son, “she was a multi-engine instrument instructor at Marlborough Airport and before mandatory retirement, she earned her air transport certificate and was licensed to fly 727s. . . She struggled like crazy to get enough hours to fly bombers across the Atlantic during World War II, but never got enough hours before the program ended.” Carol often flew small planes by day and at night she would put a blanket over the wing and sleep under it. As a member of the International Organization of Women Pilots, the Ninety-Nines, she helped establish a scholarship for women pilots.

They built the VariViggen in their barn and tested the engine by taxiing up and down Bennett Road. In its bucolic heyday, Bennett Road was a dead end dirt road with just a few houses.

She lived in one of these older houses which featured a large field and barn.  Carol was a fun and creative mother who encouraged her kids to explore and be adventurous—not a “helicopter” mom, but a mom of “free-range” kids.  Her sons played in a rock-band and practiced in their living room; loud rock band music from #8 thrilled the younger kids in the neighborhood. Carol’s daughter had a horse that often ended up at someone else’s house.

According to a neighbor, Carol “made Halloween magical by dressing up as a witch and serving witches brew made from cider with dry ice!!!  A TV camera was rigged at the front door so kids could see themselves.” She regularly played early morning tennis with neighbors Anne Hagenstein and Elaine Gossels  at the court on Bennett Road.

According to her son, their barn was set up “so you could make whatever you wanted with every kind of tool imaginable such as sheet metal cutters, lathes, gas welding torches and arc welders.“ In fact, a working car and sailboat and a number of go-carts were built there in addition to the plane.

Carol taught pottery and art classes and several times displayed her work at art shows at the DeCordova Museum.  She also worked in many mediums including watercolors and acrylics, and welded steel sculptures–several of which could be found by children in the woods near Pine Brook. Vokes Theater was nearby and Carol was often the make-up artist for the actors.

Carol Cox Stites was a real renaissance woman.

–assembled by Molly Faulkner