On May 14th, 2023, Carolyn Kretzschmar Wheaton passed away peacefully after a brief illness. She was 79. Born in Dallas, Texas, Carolyn graduated from Adamson High School before going on to North Texas State University (now UNT). She received degrees in English (BA) and Education (MA), minoring in music and German on her way to becoming a teacher. Her passion for these subjects filled much of the life that followed.

Over several decades, Carolyn taught all over—from South Grand Prairie High, and Rusk and Stockard Middle Schools in Dallas, to Linganore High in Frederick, Maryland, to Kleb Intermediate in Spring, Texas. Carolyn's former students would seek out her children in later years to declare that "Mrs. Wheaton" had been their favorite teacher, one who had inspired them to work harder. This was by design. After teaching high schoolers, she felt many were underprepared for their grade levels. Thus she moved to teach middle school. She was nominated several times for "Teacher of the Year" honors but routinely asked the administration to take her out of consideration. Similarly, when offered promotions into school administration or district offices, she refused. If it took her away from a classroom, she wasn't interested.

Carolyn believed in the power of books to teach what she thought her students needed to learn most of all: critical thinking. She taught cautionary like Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, and Martian Chronicles, numerous books about the Holocaust like Night and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, and often used children's accounts to tell stories of everything from Japanese-American internment during World War II to the genocide of the Bosnian War.

At home, her bookshelves were filled with related novels but also German classics by Goethe, Schiller, Mann, and others, an interest passed down from her own German-Texan ancestry. This extended into Euro-centric music, her record player spinning with composers like Bach and Bruckner, and later, more contemporary artists like German volksmusik legend, Heino, Dutch violinist, André Rieu, and Swedish pop group, ABBA. She and her husband would not only spend years traveling across Europe, they also lived in Munich for a time, and Carolyn attended a summer graduate course in Klagenfurt, Austria while living with a local family.

Carolyn's passion for music went beyond listening into performance as an accomplished organist, pianist, and accordion player. On piano, she accompanied school productions of The Mikado, Little Mary Sunshine, and others. On organ, she played on numerous occasions in a local restaurant and during Sunday services at Irwindell Methodist Church in Dallas where she and her family were members. She also taught others. For her, there was as much to be gained from learning to play as the subsequent performance itself. It forced a student to think differently, to listen, to make not just mental adjustments but minute physical ones. This learning could then be applied elsewhere in a student's life.

Finally, Carolyn had a fascination for cats, owning many rescue felines across her lifetime, all with creative names that captured their personalities and spirits. Her homes were filled with cat books, cartoons, figurines of exotic design from around the world to complement her furry friends. She liked their calm, their sense of play, their loyalty. She felt a kinship with their insatiable curiosity. In her later years, her devotion was repaid as her cats found ways to take care of her.

She is predeceased by her parents, Edwin and Earline Kretzschmar, and nephew, Stephen Setser, and sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Marge and Bill Putnam. She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Gordon Wheaton, daughter, Melissa Cain, Melissa's fiancé, Cody Clark, Mark Wheaton, daughter-in-law, Lauren Kisilevsky, Carolyn's sister and brother-in-law, Kathryn and Robby Setser, nephew, John Gerhart, nephew, Dana Putnam, and three grandchildren, Corbin Whipple, and, Rowan and Wyatt Wheaton.