Carolyn Taby Larkins

Carolyn Taby Larkins, 73, who volunteered for a dozen years at the Ephrata Public Library, died the morning of July 14 at her Ephrata home. For most of those years, she spent three mornings a week shelving books brought back to the library or gathering books from the library stacks to go out as interlibrary loans. For some of those years, she also shared her enthusiasm for researching family history by leading a Digging Up Your Roots genealogy discussion group one afternoon a month. Carolyn was born in Shamokin, PA, daughter of the late William and Helen (O’Gara) Taby. She was also a loving wife to her husband Robert J. Larkins of Ephrata, a caring mother to Robert R. Larkins of Ephrata and Joseph Larkins of Jersey City and mother-in-law to Mary Kate McCrary of Jersey City and a happy grandmother to Rosetta Larkins of Jersey City. Robert J. and Carolyn wed in 1978 in her hometown of Shamokin, Pa. in the coal mining area of Northumberland County. When she and Robert J. had a party for their 40th anniversary, he told the guests he wanted “to emphasize how terrific she seemed to me when I proposed marriage to her...and how wonderful she is today.” Before the birth of her first son, Carolyn had spent about a decade as a cytotechnologist using a microscope to screen lab specimens at hospitals in Danville, Pa.; Bethlehem, Pa.; York, Pa. and Suffern, N.Y. Later she put her scientific training and enthusiasm to use as a volunteer judge at the annual science fair in Hudson County, N.J. In the 1990s she was employed for close to a decade as a library assistant at St. Peter’s College, Jersey City. She and her husband bought a house in Ephrata in 2003 and moved there full time in 2006. She told stories of herself as a youngster, living across the street from the church in Shamokin. She would go door to door to hundreds of homes in Shamokin neighborhoods, selling the most Girl Scout cookies of any girl in her troop. She took painting classes from her cousin Kay and swimming classes at Edgewood Park pool for several summers before she finally learned to swim. She was a high school cheerleader for three years at Lourdes Catholic High School, even though she was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes early in that period. After high school, she went in a carpool 32 miles from Shamokin to Bloomsburg each way every school day on her way to her bachelor's degree from Bloomsburg College. She had taken lot of classes outside of her regular classes at Bloomsburg before she and her future husband met on a hike in 1977 - cooking and other courses in Dijon, France during one summer of study; cooking in York, Pa.; painting in York; drawing, Shakespeare, freshwater biology, woodworking and sewing. She took cytology classes at Geisinger Hospital’s Schools of Medical Technology after gaining her bachelor’s degree from Bloomsburg. Carolyn, who had been living in Mahwah, N.J. prior to getting married, and Robert J. (then a reporter for The Jersey Journal) started their married life in a Jersey City row house. She later took diabetes management classes in Manhattan and in Lancaster County, and German language and Photoshop and Access courses while she was an employee at St. Peter's College in Jersey City. Carolyn liked gardening and nature and art and a variety of crafts, often borrowing library books to find out how to do things and how things worked. She had sewn her own wedding dress. She cooked tens of thousands of healthy and nutritious meals. She prayed the rosary often at home, made saying grace with her family before suppers and Sunday brunches a happy ritual for 42 years and was a faithful parishioner of St. Aloysius Church when she lived in Jersey City and of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church after moving to Ephrata. She volunteered at the library of St. Aloysius Elementary School. This loving and lovely woman was dedicated to her marriage and her family. Her dedication to family was entwined with her enthusiasm for family history. She had no brothers or sisters, but her mom, the late Helen (O’Gara) Taby had 13 siblings on her side of the family and Carolyn had scores of first cousins. When she and her family lived in Jersey City, they would often go to Shamokin for Easter to celebrate the holiday with Carolyn’s first cousin Peggy Brock, now a Florida resident, and Peggy’s children and grandchildren. Carolyn traced her own ancestors back hundreds of years. She enjoyed sharing her latest research extending knowledge of their family tree or her newest stories of family history with her many cousins and their children and grandchildren, often at the annual O’Gara reunions she loved to attend at Knoebel’s campground in Elysburg, Pa. She also found information on her husband’s ancestors, some of it going back 400 years, and shared it with her husband’s siblings, nephew, nieces and many other members of his side of the extended family. She will missed by many of her large extended family in addition to her husband, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and sons. These include sister-in-law Martha Larkins and husband Bill Vasil of Jersey City, sister-in-law Alice (Larkins) Travis and husband David Travis of North Plainfield, N.J., brother-in-law Daniel G. Larkins and partner Kathie Nees Davis of Marietta, nephew Daniel W. Larkins and partner Zeynep Uzumcu of Seattle, niece Celeste Vasil and partner Andrew Presnal of Jersey City and niece Aurora Vasil and husband Colin Kelley of Jersey City, and many more. Friends will be received at Paul L. Gravenor Home For Funerals 100 West Main St. Ephrata, PA 17522 from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 20, 2020. Occupancy will be limited to 25 persons at a time and those in attendance are asked to follow CDC recommended social distancing practices and wear masks. A Mass of Christian Burial, attendance limited to family members, will be celebrated at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church 320 Church Ave. Ephrata, PA 17522 at 11 a.m. on Monday, July 20, 2020. Final Commendation and farewell will follow at All Saints Catholic Cemetery, Elysburg, PA.