Carol Jean Moore George, 72, formerly of Ft. Myers died March 17, 2020 in Tallahassee, Fl. Carol was born in Ft. Myers in 1947 to her parents James and Winifred Moore. She graduated from Ft. Myers High School in 1965 and was a proud majorette. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Education from Florida State University in 1969. Carol worked for the Lee County School Board where she was a teacher at Skyline Elementary in Cape Coral.
Carol was a passionate teacher for over three decades and influenced countless student’s lives. She loved her students like her own children and when she retired, all she could say was how much she missed being in the classroom. Carol also loved Fort Myers and spent much of her childhood at the Rock Lake Motel (now the Rock Lake Resort) in downtown Fort Myers. Her Dad built the Motel by hand. Carol loved her children above anything else and was the most loving Mom anyone could ask for. She cheered on the Florida State Seminoles with an intense passion, and she spent twenty years enjoying the summer on Fort Myers Beach, her favorite vacation spot with family and friends. All of Carol’s friends say she was one-of-a-kind: fierce, funny, and you never knew what she was going to say next.
She was preceded in death by her husband Gary in 2006.
Survivors include her daughter Whitney Bauer of Tallahassee, FL and son Michael George of Brooklyn, NY along with her beloved cat Chloe.
Carol will be buried beside her husband at Ft. Myers City Cemetery. Private Arrangements by Harvey-Engelhardt where condolences can be shared by visiting www.harvey-engelhardt.com In lieu of flowers, the family of Carol George requests that friends and family donate to ‘The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools’ in memory of Carol’s 30+ years as a public school teacher.
Hi everyone, for those who don’t know me, which is none of you, I am Michael George, Carol’s son. Though from here on out I will address her as Mom because she was one of the most loving Moms there ever was. Though she did show her love in sometimes funny ways.
For example, a few years ago, when I decided to dye my hair platinum blond I sent her a photo and she responded: “Omg, you’re finally cool.” It only took 29 years, but I finally earned that badge of approval!
Our Mom had an amazing sense of humor. As many of her fellow teachers recently commented: She was so witty, dry, sassy, a straight talker. Sometimes I felt like she spent her entire life giving side-eye to the world, wondering why people didn’t just “get it” the way she did.
She was born not too far from here, part of a family that had a long history in this town.
Her great great grandpa has an island named after him off the coast, and her great great grandma was one of the first school teachers in South Florida.
Her grandpa ran the first ferry service between Fort Myers and Cape Coral, long before there were bridges.
And her Dad built the Rock Lake Motel with his bare hands, which is now the Rock Lake Resort.
She grew up on Cordova Drive, a short walk from the Edison Home, where she adopted her first of the many cats she spent her life loving. From Inky, to Molly, to Skye, to Chloe.
She was rebellious in her youth, and for all her life after that. If you told her not to do something, she’d do it the next day. She once told a story where her Mom asked that she never get on a plane because it was too dangerous. Within a week, she boarded her friend’s seaplane and flew over the Motel downtown and waved to her Mom from the window.
She was a child of the ’70s and grew out gorgeous, prime time hippy hair after graduating from FSU and moving to Georgia where teaching jobs were opening up.
The first year she started teaching was actually the first year they de-segregated schools. Her class was made up of all black children and she told this story: “It was strange, for the first five minutes everyone was silent and terrified, because they’d never had a white teacher, and I’d never had black students. And then, within 3 hours, we were laughing and everything was as normal as it should be.” Years of racist policy erased in an afternoon.
It was living in Georgia where she met our Dad, Gary. Home videos show they were a hilarious couple, always joking and pranking their best friends, the Wood family.
Funny enough, my Mom was famous for saying she never wanted children. She spent her teens, 20’s, and 30’s swearing that was true … and then she turned 40. Suddenly she was committed to having not one, but two children.
After having a preemie that could fit in the palm of her hand, aka this small person standing in front of me, aka my sister, the doctor’s told her she could die if she tried to have another kid.
This is where my Mom’s stubbornness really started to shine. Thank heavens those doctors told her not to do something because here I am.
A few years after I was born, she moved the family back to Fort Myers to take care of her aging parents, and we built a house down on Argyle Drive off McGregor.
There’s a great home video where my Mom gives a tour of the house, and every 30 seconds my sister and I run by at full speed. The video is about 10 minutes long, and we don’t stop running and screaming the entire time.
Did I mention my Mom was patient? She had to be to deal with my sister and I. And it wasn’t just us, she taught public elementary school kids for over 30 years. I remember visiting her in the classroom and feeling a bit wowed. She was an incredibly focused and skillful teacher. The best part about her, both to her students, and everyone else in her life, is she was relatable, earnest, and a total character. My high school friend’s fondly recall that she always had a joke ready, usually, one that had them asking “Can she say that…?”
It didn’t matter, because she didn’t care. Mom was independent and strong-willed, and also a creature of habit, certain things essentially became her brand. She started every morning, for decades, with a can of coke and a packet of peanut butter crackers. She went to Hickory B-B-Q down on Old McGregor Blvd from when she was a kid to just a few years ago and would inevitably say their pulled pork sandwich was “the best thing she had ever had.” Spoiler alert: Her latest meal was always “the best thing she had ever had.”
She took showers so long that she probably took the hot water from half the neighborhood, and loved the Seminoles so much that if you even came close to mentioning you were a Gator fan you could already see her starting to forget who you were.
Growing up, both of our parents always put us ahead of themselves. In Mom’s older age, she took this to a new level. She was always available no matter when we needed to talk. She’d pick up on the second ring and talk for however long we wanted. She was also always the first one to like Instagram posts from me, my sister, or so many of our friends. So many of our friends, in fact, that I’d often ask myself “how did she find them to follow!?”
Mom was a force, one-of-a-kind, and though there are many adjectives I could continue to list, I’ll actually turn to her Instagram bio to wrap things up. Her bio read: “Retired public school teacher and mother of two children that I love.” And that really sums her up.
Her entire life dedicated to endless young people, teaching them how to be better, and showing them what it looks like to have thick skin in this world.
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