Carol Ann Cox (née Tafel), age 77, passed away peacefully at her home of 42 years on Tuesday, May 31st.
There was a private funeral held at the Princeton Cemetery.
A memorial service celebrating her life will be held on Saturday, June 25th at 3:30pm in the Dorothy Brown Room at 333 Broadmead Avenue, the University League Nursery School.
Carol was born on July 7th, 1938 in Philadelphia to Gustav Hugo Tafel and Catherine Ann Tafel (née Kelly). She grew up in the University Heights section of Philadelphia and spent her teenage years in Avalon, New Jersey at her family’s second home.
She was a registered nurse with a specialty in Urology, having received her certificate in Nursing in 1959 from the Nursing School of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. There, she met her husband, Edward Cox, a graduate student at Penn. They fell in love and married at Christmas-time 1960.
Ted and Carol’s first two daughters were born in Philadelphia before they moved to Palo Alto. The family moved to Princeton in 1967. Her third daughter was born in Princeton and attended the University League Nursery School, where Carol started her second career as a teacher and taught for seventeen years until her retirement in 1992.
Carol traveled extensively in Europe, backpacked in the Rocky Mountains, fished in North America, and skied. When she was at home, Carol enjoyed gardening, birding, crossword puzzles, visiting with friends, and helping to raise her grandchildren.
Carol is survived by her husband of 56 years, her daughters and their husbands and six grandchildren: Cynthia Cox and Wright, Will, and Catherine Abbot of Baltimore, MD; Rebecca Cox and John, Ed, and Mike McCorry of Princeton, NJ; Rachel Cox and Chris, Emily, and Ann Shenk of Bethesda, MD.
She consistently provided her children with sound life advice and was a wonderful example of how to achieve a happy marriage, for which her children are grateful. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews and her younger siblings Martha Bingham (Sister Maria of the Erie, PA Carmelite monastery) and Hugo Tafel of Key West, FL. She was predeceased by her older sister Virginia Mullen of Rome, GA.
In lieu of flowers, Carol asked that you make a donation to the University League Nursery School of Princeton for the support of young children in financial need.
Arrangements are by Mather-Hodge Funeral Home Princeton.
