Caroline Huber has died. She was my Godmother. Her 92 years of life were that of a great American citizen. She was the kind of American fiercely critical of her country but did her darndest to fix it.

No photo for the blog today. Carol would have hated a photo. If you Google her, you will find next to nothing. No surprise.

She believed in a better world - as her son Sam said at the memorial service via Zoom. And she worked at it. Simple as that. Old world values. Modesty, generosity, high standards, and good grammar.

She was blessed with immense privilege, something I didn’t know about when we played touch football and kick-the-can with her kids at their place a mile through the woods near the Jersey shore. Her husband Mike ran JM Huber, one of the country’s largest privately held companies.

Carol could have spent her days at the country club playing bridge. Just the thought of that life repulsed her. It was always hard to hear people call her Caroline. We just called her Carol.

In those days, the 1960s, life was so primitive. And Carol was modest. She drove what I think was an International Harvester wagon to hold lots of kids in carpools. Husband Mike was a pioneer of working from home while running an international company. We played at their place, watched my brother fix go-carts with his best friend Michael, and played a special kind of volleyball where cheating was encouraged.

Carol’s parents-in-law owned the farm where they lived, grew vegetables and fruit, with chickens and some dairy, while growing the company, founded by their own father who arrived on the boat from Europe in the late 1800s.

It was an idyllic childhood surrounded by woods and ocean.

Every year at Christmas, Carol would pick up my classmate Phoebe, a godaughter, for the trip to Red Bank, NJ, $25 checks in hand for Christmas shopping. The highlight, of course, was lunch with Carol - a burger and a vanilla shake.

We didn’t know she had it all. Greenwich, Vassar, the coast of Maine, a powerful business, dedicated philanthropist. Those material blessings merely enabled her to enrich the lives of people around her and her community every day. In those days, wealth was hidden. And much was expected of those who had it. Carol rejected any glamour and dressed that way. She always carried a canvas book bag to hold her many books.

Carol spent every day using her position to help others. She taught school at every level. I feared her English class in my New Jersey grade school. She earned a Ph.D. in 1992 and taught writing to the end.

She was fiercely liberal. I remember in 1967, me all of seven years old, Carol fumed that Bobby Kennedy had entered the presidential race against her favorite Eugene McCarthy. She thought Kennedy was an opportunist, late to oppose the war in Vietnam.

Her values were nature, education, housing, mental health, the environment, the arts, and birds.

She helped fund and created the fabulous Two River Theatre in Red Bank, where NYC actors fine-tuned their chops before Broadway runs. She created the Huber Woods, a nature reserve open to everyone. No permits, no admission fee. For me, it was just the woods where we played before Lyme disease. We never thought that Carol and her family actually owned it all. She helped fund dozens of other charities I know little about. It’s just what she did. Her Stone Foundation in NJ will continue her work, and the state will be a better place for it.

Carol’s New Jersey, our New Jersey, was a great place to grow up and live, so different from the Turnpike and Parkway reputation.

The family farm across the road from their house was a real place. It had the shabbiness of real work: hay bales, tools, tractors, saddles. My sister loved it there. One of our nursery school teachers lived in a small house on the property. We played kick-the-can at another place up the road.

No TV allowed during the week at Carol’s place. There was one massive luxury - a small fridge in the back hallway with soda pop like Wink, my favorite.

It was Carol’s honesty that stays with me and her dedication and loyalty. She always remembered my wife’s name, even though we didn’t see her much in the last 35 years. Every year, a Christmas wreath would arrive two weeks before xmas with a note.

She was the example of a citizen, blessed with so much, who made the world around her better, in every way she could. RIP Carol Huber.