Carolyn Alexander Fleming went to heaven on May 9, 2019 and was joyfully reunited with her beloved husband, Jack. As she did throughout her life, Carolyn greeted visitors with her famous smile and charm until near the end. She was surrounded by her three children, Dr. Alexander (Zan) Fleming, Merry Fleming Thomasson, and Tina Fleming Campbell of Harpers Ferry, WV, Charlottesville, and Tallahassee, respectively, who have provided nine grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. Carolyn’s parents were Eloise and Gilbert Alexander of Forsyth, Georgia. Carolyn grew in Forsyth, a small college town, 80 miles south of Atlanta, with her sister Ruth, now Mrs. Ruth Cunningham of Richmond. Carolyn flourished as a precocious child in that picture-book town, which she later would use as a backdrop for her novel. She graduated from Tift College where she had been the college mascot as a 5-year old.

Carolyn was introduced to Jack by a childhood friend who became Jack’s medical school classmate. Carolyn and Jack soon married and then embarked on a 70-year travel adventure. They lived in Nashville and Washington State before settling in Jack’s hometown, Pensacola, but resided for periods of time in London, New York, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Their love for travel and culture was legendary. They visited every continent and some countries, like the Soviet Union, China, and Burma, which at the time were very restrictive for foreigners.

Carolyn and Jack made a home together that was not just the center of their family life but a place of great hospitality for countless friends, community leaders, distinguished visitors, and anyone who knocked on the door. Carolyn and Jack applied their creativity and energy to raising their children and inspiring their grandchildren. They made each child and grandchild feel special, starting with writing a song for each of them. Carolyn managed the household while Jack spend long hours serving patients and becoming a preeminent cardiologist and leader in the medical community. Carolyn with Jack hosted at their home many events and hundreds of friends and visitors to the city.   In addition to Jack’s world-famous medical colleagues, showered southern hospitality on Victor Borge, composer and conductor Fred Waring, ABC News Anchor Frank Reynolds, fellow writer Eudora Welty, and Methodist theologian and missionary Rev. Dr. E. Stanley Jones. Though she brought a love and practice of Southern cooking reflected in her prize-winning recipes and authoring multiple cookbooks, including Heirloom Recipes of Old Seville Square, Treasure of Sea and Land, and Pensacola Holidays, Carolyn ranged far beyond the home.

Carolyn was a prolific community leader, motivator, and founder. She was president of the Federation of Garden Clubs, Junior League of Pensacola, and a trailblazer in the Music Study Club, Pensacola Art Guild, National League of American Women, Morning Book Club, Pensacola Historical Society, Fiesta of Five Flags, Pensacola Cultural Affairs and Facilities Board, and the Pensacola Heritage Foundation. She was a founding board member of Tiger Bay, served on the Saenger Theater Management Board, and was instrumental in saving and transforming the Saenger Theater into an iconic performance center of great civic pride.   Carolyn was a co-founder of Evening in Old Seville Square, which led to the rejuvenation of that park into another Pensacola icon and community center piece. The first event was held in August 1966 and spawned the Great Gulf Coast Arts Festival, the Galvez Bicentennial Celebration, and official Fourth of July festivities to this day.

Carolyn was a life-long teacher starting at Pensacola High School, where she inspired love of literature and creative writing. She was an ardent supporter of higher education in the city and the state, serving as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Pensacola Junior College and the Council of Advisors for the University of West Florida, where she was active in the Seminar on the Mission of UWF, Committee on University Volunteers, Coordinator of Community College Relations, the Planning Committee for Discovery Program for Women, and the Friends of Music, and Friends of Theater. At the state level, Carolyn served as the Executive Director of the Florida Endowment for the Humanities and the Commission on the Future of Higher Education in Florida. She chaired the Fine Arts Council of Florida and led its Panels on Literature, Public Media and Music, and the Governor’s Awards. She was on the Board of the Florida House, the State’s ambassadorial edifice in our nation’s capital.

For her service to Pensacola and to the academic community, Carolyn was conferred, with Jack, the Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of West Florida. Also reflecting their indivisible collaboration, Carolyn and Jack received together the Pensacola Area Chamber of Commerce’s 1989 Pioneer Leaders Award, and the Mayor’s Community Medallion for Good Citizenship. Carolyn was not just Jack’s creative partner and muse, but she was often the subject of lyrics that Jack wrote such as from Pensacola USA: “When the skies a beautiful blue over Pensacola…and the sun is glistening down upon the bay. When they salute the Navy Blue in Pensacola, oh it’s there with my love that I would always stay. When my heart is high in the sky over Pensacola, and the one I love is waiting on the scene…with her smile like a mile of azaleas and magnolias, oh with her side I could fly a submarine.”

Carolyn was a passionate writer. Her novel, Journey Proud, for which she received the Eric Hoeffer Book Award, is set in the 1930’s in a small Georgia town like her birthplace. The story is told by the voice of a spunky, young girl who sounds a lot like Carolyn. Carolyn took every opportunity to ingeniously put words on paper and involve others in the creation. When she served as foreman of the federal grand jury, Carolyn marshalled the entire court and jury, including the judge, to compile an annotated cookbook, Democracy Means Sharing. With Jack, she authored the books Thinking Places, Where Great Ideas Were Born”, a collection of insights, based on their travels, into the lives of over thirty creative people, and Perils!, which recounted their own harrowing travel adventures—and there were many including walking away for the crash of an Eastern Airlines plane at Pensacola airport. Together they wrote with renowned composer Allen Pote, with support from his wife Susan, the musicals Bahia de Panzacola and Imagination!, a whimsical musical for children inspired by the life of Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Pacific.

The most amazing collaboration of the Fleming-Pote collaboration resulted in Seaplane, An All American Musical, which received the Adelia Rosasco Soule Award and standing ovations at over 60 performances across the country. The original 1989 stage production in Pensacola was followed by special performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 1990, a three-year summer stock run in Hammondsport, New York that started in 1994, and a production in Pensacola that same year. Seaplane! was last performed in August 2015 to capacity audiences at the Saenger Theatre. The late Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin said of the show, “It’s Music Man on wings” and “a phenomenon in Hammondsport” [when all the people of the town and] “vicinity were brought together every year in a joyous celebration.” Researching the story of Seaplane! took Jack and Carolyn from Pensacola Naval Air Station to Miami, San Diego, and many other places. They interviewed and became friends with the descendants of Alexander Graham Bell at the family estate Beinn Bhreagh outside of Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Bell was a major supporter of Glenn Curtiss and early aviation and an important character in the play. Jack and Carolyn were invited by the US Navy to attend in Yokohama, Japan, the decommissioning of the ship USS John Tower, named for another central character in the play, who was one of the first naval aviators and later a highly decorated admiral during WWW2. A navy band played excepts from Seaplane at the ceremony.

Carolyn was very active member and leader of First United Methodist Church, serving in leadership positions and providing support and advice to many members and to Senior Pastors starting with J.B Nichols and later to become Bishop Paul Duffey, and more recently, Powers McCloud, Henry Roberts and Wesley Wachob. She chaired many committees and a key capital campaign. She and Jack sang and toured with the church’s distinguished choir for many years.

Carolyn Fleming never forgot her roots in Georgia and the values of service, creativity, and family that were formed there, but she bloomed where she was planted. She bloomed even for a season while living abroad and during a lifetime in Pensacola, the city she loved and enriched beyond measure. She lives on in the many lives and institution that she inspired and nurtured.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 am on Monday, May 20, 2019 at First United Methodist Church.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to First United Methodist Church, Pensacola, Florida.