Obituary: Farley, Carmen Kathleen Poole
She was two weeks from her 86th birthday.
She is survived by her son Jon and daughter Jan. Robert, her husband of 59 years, preceded her in death.
Carmen was born in 1929 in St. John’s Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota and spent her first seven years in McLaughlin, South Dakota.
She moved to Spokane in 1936.
Through her long residency in Spokane, Carmen was always an active member of her community.
As a high school and college student, her interest in theatre led her to perform in plays and other presentations throughout the city.
She also performed on radio.
She appeared in several productions in the earliest days of Spokane Civic Theatre.
She was a member of Job’s Daughters, and served as Washington State Honored Queen.
In college at Whitworth she was a member of Alpha Psi Omega and Pi Kappa Delta, and in her senior year was elected President of Women Students.
She graduated Phi Beta Kappa (Suma cum laude) in 1951.
After college, she worked for several years in the personnel department of The Crescent department store.
She married Robert Farley in 1953.
After her family was established, Carmen returned to the workplace and became a Children’s Protective Service case worker for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.
She continued in this work for 25 years, until her retirement in 1991.
Work and family obligations did not prevent her from participating in other community activities.
When her children were young, she served as a Cub Scout den mother and as a leader of a Camp Fire group.
She also directed several plays at St. George’s School.
Later she served as a board member for numerous organizations, including Camp Fire, Spokane Children’s Theatre, Spokane Civic Theatre, and Washington State Community Theatre Association (WSCTA).
She was board president for Spokane Civic Theatre in 1996-1997, and also served as Vice President of WSCTA.
Carmen and Robert organized and taught in the Spokane Civic Theatre School.
The two of them also guided several high school winter-break Broadway theatre tours to New York.
Carmen directed several plays for Spokane Children’s Theatre, many of which were her own original scripts.
She also directed the musicals “1776” and “Oklahoma!”
for the Warehouse Theatre in Yakima, Washington.
Her final directing assignment was Spokane Children’s Theatre’s 50th anniversary production of “Peter Pan” which was staged in 1995 and then revived in 1997 at the Met Theatre (now the Bing Crosby Theatre).
In 2008, Spokane Children’s Theatre endowed a scholarship fund in the name of Robert and Carmen.
For recreation, Carmen loved to travel, especially with her long-time friends Leonard and Beryl Pielli.
Favorite destinations included San Francisco, New York, and the Nevada resorts.
Carmen will be honored in a memorial service at 11:00AM, July 25th at Sunset Chapel in Fairmount Cemetery.
Please direct any remembrance donations to your favorite Spokane charity.
There is no way to know how many lives Carmen touched in her time.
She is deeply missed by all who knew and loved her.