Carol Diane McKendree

Carol Diane McKendree was born on January 25, 1945, at the Centro Asturiano Hospital in Tampa, the first daughter of Bill and Lena McKendree, and granddaughter of Tony and Andenzia Tripolino. She grew up in Tampa, and the local paper marked her sixteenth birthday in 1961.

On September 1, 1963, at 18, she married Timothy Lanier Deaton at Palma Ceia Baptist Church in Tampa, on his 20th birthday. Over the years Carol lived in Tampa, Lakeland, St. Petersburg, Jacksonville and Dade City, and finally in Darby in Pasco County. She later married Clyde Lewis Leach Jr. and, after him, Gene Tunney Neilson. She was the mother of four children: Amber and Lanette Deaton, and Shawnn and Lewsette Leach.

The newspapers followed Carol through some hard years, and they show what everyone who knew her saw: an amazing woman who stayed positive, whatever her circumstances. In 1979 a Tampa paper wrote about the leatherwork she did from a wheelchair. In 1980 a St. Petersburg paper featured her in a story on paralysis and state aid. In May 1989, columnist Jan Glidewell wrote about her, another story described her positive attitude after a car wreck, and that same month she earned her bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences from the University of South Florida. In 1990 she was offering reflexology to runners at the Darby road race.

Carol died in Darby on February 1, 2021, at 76, and is buried in Wesley Chapel, Florida.