Karyn Carpenter
After a long fight against cancer, Karyn Carpenter died on April 23 in Ajijic, the village she had made her home for several years.
Karyn graduated from Oswego (Kansas) High School in 1973, and Pittsburgh State University in 1977. She went on to several disjointed careers in writing, marketing, public relations and event planning before completing her professional life as a photographer. She spent eight years as a spokesperson for Precious Moments Figurines, a job she took thinking she would be promoting a line of lingerie. Surprise!
Karyn loved to travel and especially to live overseas. She spent two years in a poor area of Palermo, Sicily, where she was bossed around like crazy by her neighbors and still refused to have a baby to make them happy. In a small Tuscan village, she had an apartment over the home of one of Italy’s more famous musicians and enjoyed the locals who bragged that the musician’s dog ran away from his compound and was much happier living on the streets of the town where they all fed and spoiled it.
Karyn spent 20 years living in the Pacific Northwest, and eventually traded her knee-high rubber boots for a pair of flip-flops and a home in sunny Ajijic. Among her other favorite places were Newfoundland and Uganda.
Karyn loved doing the unexpected and once traveled the United States, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for six months, living in a tent with her dog, and staying in the homes of strangers who invited her to visit with them.
Karyn was owned by four amazing Newfoundland dogs, and was often not recognized without 100 pounds of black fur by her side. She was preceded in death by her parents, Bob and Janet Carpenter, of Oswego, and about half her graduating class (it was an extremely unlucky year), and survived by her brother, David.