CAROLYN McCOOL September 10, 1946 - May 29, 2018 Carolyn was born in Coronado, California, the daughter of Carol Elaine McCool and Richard Miles McCool, with younger brothers, Rick and John. After graduating high school in Yokohama, Japan, she returned to the U.S. to attend classes at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the late 1960s, where she studied philosophy, formal logic and modern dance. She married her first husband at the age of 22, a philosophy professor, and moved with him to Vancouver, BC in the early 1970s, crossing the border into Canada in an Austin Mini convertible, a scarf tied over her hair to keep the wind out. She attended law school at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1976. She worked as a lawyer with Legal Aid in Vancouver through the 1980s, and was active in the Law Union of British Columbia. She joined a leftist study group, forming lifelong friendships with a group of people that included Juri Oja, her second husband, the father of her children, and later, ex-husband and best friend. In 1990, Carolyn became a member at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, adjudicating cases for two years before taking a position as the Executive Director of the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre. In 1999, she moved to Kosovo to work as one of the nine Directors for the Organization of Security and Co-Operation in Europe. From Kosovo, Carolyn moved to Afghanistan to act as head of the UN Development Fund for Women. In 2006 she returned to the Immigration and Refugee Board, and joined the Mental Health Review Board as a member in 2014. She was finally convinced to retire last fall. Carolyn successfully fought cancer twice, receiving a stem cell transplant in 2013 that she boasted made her bionic. Her greatest love, apart from her family, was reading. She was fascinated by other realms - science fiction, quantum physics, outer space, Antarctica. Carolyn passed away unexpectedly, but peacefully, on May 29, 2018. She is survived by her children, Kate and Nick Oja, who will miss her terribly as a mother and as an individual: curious, elegant, peculiar, unafraid.
CAROLYN McCOOL September 10, 1946 - May 29, 2018 Carolyn was born in Coronado, California, the daughter of Carol Elaine McCool and Richard Miles McCool, with younger brothers, Rick and John. After graduating high school in Yokohama, Japan, she returned to the U.S. to attend classes at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the late 1960s, where she studied philosophy, formal logic and modern dance. She married her first husband at the age of 22, a philosophy professor, and moved with him to Vancouver, BC in the early 1970s, crossing the border into Canada in an Austin Mini convertible, a scarf tied over her hair to keep the wind out. She attended law school at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1976. She worked as a lawyer with Legal Aid in Vancouver through the 1980s, and was active in the Law Union of British Columbia. She joined a leftist study group, forming lifelong friendships with a group of people that included Juri Oja, her second husband, the father of her children, and later, ex-husband and best friend. In 1990, Carolyn became a member at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, adjudicating cases for two years before taking a position as the Executive Director of the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre. In 1999, she moved to Kosovo to work as one of the nine Directors for the Organization of Security and Co-Operation in Europe. From Kosovo, Carolyn moved to Afghanistan to act as head of the UN Development Fund for Women. In 2006 she returned to the Immigration and Refugee Board, and joined the Mental Health Review Board as a member in 2014. She was finally convinced to retire last fall. Carolyn successfully fought cancer twice, receiving a stem cell transplant in 2013 that she boasted made her bionic. Her greatest love, apart from her family, was reading. She was fascinated by other realms - science fiction, quantum physics, outer space, Antarctica. Carolyn passed away unexpectedly, but peacefully, on May 29, 2018. She is survived by her children, Kate and Nick Oja, who will miss her terribly as a mother and as an individual: curious, elegant, peculiar, unafraid.
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