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Carol Sweet MacLennan

Teacher, library trustee, tireless caregiver, mender of all things torn or broken

Carol MacLennon. (Courtesy photo)

Carol Sweet (Moore) MacLennan, 94, died peacefully Dec. 13, 2024, at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center after a brief illness. Born in Boston on May 24, 1930, to Herbert Carlton Moore and Lillian Sweet Moore, she was raised in Newton, attending Newton High School and Boston University. Upon graduation from BU in 1952, she took a teaching job in Harvard, where she met her late husband, Alexander MacLennan. They married in 1954 and went on to raise two children, Dawn and Alexander Jr., in the house on Bolton Road where Alex had been raised. Carol was a resident of Harvard—and of their house—for 72 years.

Throughout her life in Harvard, Carol was active in the Harvard Unitarian Church, serving as church secretary for 20 years. She was a regular volunteer at the Bargains in the Belfry and served several terms as president of the Women’s Alliance. Carol was a substitute in the Harvard schools for many years, and she served as a trustee of the Harvard Public Library during the years when the addition to the original library on the Common was designed and built.

Just as she was generous in her service to the community, Carol was tireless in her love and service to members of her family. She spent much of her life serving as a caregiver, first for her father-in-law, then for her mother, and then for her husband in their elder years. For Carol, family was paramount, and she cherished opportunities to spend time with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. When her children were young, she and her family spent summers in Plymouth, and, when her children were grown, she and Alex spent summers in Vermont to be near their son and help him on his farm. In later years, she spent weeks on Nantucket and the coast of Maine with her daughter and family (all four generations), and she went on adventures with her son and family to Martha’s Vineyard, Lake Champlain, the Isles of Shoals, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the Magdalen Islands. Wherever family was was where she wanted to be.

Carol was steady, unfailingly kind, practical, and always optimistic. She laughed heartily and loved the ocean, flowers, sewing and quilting, reading, word puzzles, and saltwater taffy. She sewed clothes for her grandchildren’s stuffed animals and was the mender of all things torn or broken. She was, to the last, as cheeky, loving, and clear-eyed as she had always been.

Carol is survived by her daughter, Dawn (MacLennan) Steim, and husband Joseph; her son, Alexander MacLennan Jr., and wife Katharine Bennett; her five grandchildren: Ella Steim, Anna Steim and husband David Miller (with whom, to Carol’s great delight, she shared a birthday), Madeline Steim and wife Caity Gwin, Elizabeth (MacLennan) Levesque and husband Spencer, and Elizabeth Bennett; and her two great-grandchildren Olivia Miller and Sage Miller. A memorial service for Carol is scheduled for May 3, 2025, at the Harvard Unitarian Church.

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