CarolAnn Porter Obituary

CarolAnn Porter was a true searcher who reinvented herself many times over the course of a life taken too soon. A student of faith, she began her education at St Kevin’s in Warwick and continued her education at Prout Memorial High School. She went on to study at CCRI’s nursing program and then switched gears, entering flight attendant school for Eastern Airlines. After a brief career as a stewardess and numerous modeling jobs with Cherry & Webb, she married Warwick resident Philip Soder and became a young mom. In the years following, she started working for a company called Tupperware and dedicated her valuable time to becoming a sales manager. As a sales manager, she was able to help support her family by earning most of the furnishings in their home as well as an Oldsmobile station wagon. After leaving Tupperware as one of the most successful managers in New England, she went to work for a couple of promising startups - The Talking Phonebook and Northern RI Cellular. After parting ways with Philip, she held two jobs at once and divided her time as a fully invested mom and a pioneer sales person in the budding field of wireless phones and communications. In 1995 she started in advertising for The Pawtucket Times and stayed there until 1999, when she took her dream job at The Narragansett Times. She worked closely with her South County clients and won all of their trust and admiration. She was known to all as CarolAngel and lived up to that name to friends and family. In 2009, her first Grandchild - Hunter McCarthy entered the world and stole her heart. Upon leaving The Narragansett Times in 2010, she had given 15 years of hard work in her field, loving every minute of it. At the age of 57, CarolAnn was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and was taken into family care by her loving brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Donna Porter. In 2012, CarolAnn got to meet her second grandchild, Brooklyn Soder and confirmed the fact that being a grandmother was the cornerstone of her soul.

CarolAnn is the daughter of the late Russell Ivan Porter and is survived by her mother Clare, her brother Michael and his wife, Donna, her sister Kathleen and her husband Jeffrey, son Russell and his wife Angela, daughter Kerrilyn and her husband Alex, her three grandchildren Hunter, Brooklyn and Teagan, four nieces Dawn, Julie, Elizabeth, Melissa and one nephew Michael Jr.

Her funeral will be held Tuesday at 8:30 AM from the Thomas & Walter Quinn Funeral Home, 2435 Warwick Ave., Warwick, with a Mass of Christian Burial at 11AM in St. Anthony Church, 1413 Mineral Spring Ave., North Providence. Burial in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Providence. Visiting hours Monday 4-8PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions to Alzheimer’s Association, RI Chapter, 245 Waterman St. Ste. 306, Providence, RI 02906.