Spolar

Carole Spolar lived a life of encouraging others.

She was a mother and grandmother who saw challenges — the possibilities of success and failure — as adventures.

Born on a farm in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, she milked cows, rode horses, killed chickens for Sunday suppers, and helped run the family dairy with her parents and three siblings. She knew the deprivations of the Great Depression, but she rarely spoke about them. Family was a bulwark in tough times, and the stories she shared from her upbringing were laced with laughter, if some tears.

She became a U.S. citizen after she married, but returned often to Canada, most recently in 2012 for a big family wedding.

Mrs. Spolar, 88, formerly of Butler, passed away of heart failure Tuesday evening at home with her husband of 63 years and their children.

Mr. Spolar is the retired president of Bank Pittsburgh, formerly known as Pittsburgh Home Savings and Loan, which later merged into First Commonwealth Bank.

The Spolars lived in Penn Township, near Butler Country Club, for nearly 50 years. They moved to Vincentian Villa in 2011 and in July 2013 to Sunrise Senior Living in McCandless. The couple attended church at La Roche College in their last years.

Over her lifetime, Mrs. Spolar was a member of Holy Sepulcher Catholic Church in Butler, where she helped with annual summer bazaars, and Penn Township Woman's Club, where she planned fundraisers and fashion shows.

But she focused her most enviable skills on her family. She sewed clothes, designed hats, upholstered furniture, nurtured fields of flowers every summer, made jams and jellies and, through good hard work, she set standards.

She encouraged her three daughters, as well as her son, toward a university — all eventually earned master's degrees — and she urged them to travel. With her husband, years later, she traveled to Paris, London, Rome, and elsewhere in Europe.

One of her favorite expressions was a simple approach to life, “You never know unless you try.”

Her children attended Knoch High School in Saxonburg; two, as teenagers, were awarded summer study-abroad scholarships, one in Switzerland and another in Turkey.

Mrs. Spolar opened her home to foreign exchange students from Panama, Jordan and Switzerland, in part because she knew what it was like to be without family in a new country and in part because she wanted her children to know the world. In her later years, those exchange students would still phone “Mom Spolar” on holidays. Her last phone conversation with one was on Mother's Day this year. Mayrin Canto, an exchange student from Panama who attended Knoch in 1985 with her youngest daughter, Cathleen, called to check on her.

Born Oct. 20, 1925, Mrs. Spolar suffered memory loss in her last years but, even then, she handled hardship with grace. She grew matter-of-fact, if frustrated, about the fog of aging and laughed at times about the lapses.

“What are we doing here?” she asked a year ago this month as she sat in a hotel lobby amid the hubbub and preparations for the marriage of her grandson, Stephen Shepard. When reminded that all were gathered for her first grandchild's wedding, she chuckled and shrugged amiably. “Oh, I knew that.”

Later, she was photographed just outside the church door, greeting the bride and groom and beaming. That night, she took turns dancing with her son and grandsons until midnight.

Carole Spolar is survived by her husband, Stephen; her children, Stephen (Jody) of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, Carole (Mark) Shepard of Wexford, Christine of London, England, and Cathleen (Mark) Roberts and their son, Julian, of Biloxi, Miss.; her grandchildren, Stephen (Molly) Shepard of New York, Andrew Shepard of Chicago, Maureen Shepard of Los Angeles, Matthew Spolar of New York, Ellen Spolar of Washington, D.C., and Zachary Spolar of Miami; and her brother, Andrew (Enola) Stilin of Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

Spolar— The family of Carole Spolar, who passed away Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014, will receive friends from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Thompson-Miller Funeral Home, 124 E. North St., Butler.A funeral mass will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Holy Sepulcher Church, 1304 E. Cruikshank Road, Butler.In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Holy Sepulcher Building Fund.The family wants to express its deep appreciation to the staff at Sunrise Assisted Living in McCandless for their care and compassion.Online condolences can be given at www.thompson-miller.com.