FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CENTER-DALLAS: “It is with great sadness, that we announce the passing of Carolyn Gorman, a dear employee to the EHC-D for decades. She helped educate numerous patient’s on their environment and how to heal. She will be missed immensely.”

OBITUARY

Carolyn Gorman was born in Houston, Texas on 19 November, 1934 and passed from this life in Dallas County on 1 August 2024. She was the daughter and only child of John Duren Porter and Lillian McCall, both parents originally from Milam County. Mr. Porter was a 1922 graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M College and was employed by United Gas Company. Carolyn attended Hogg Junior High and John H. Regan Senior High School where she excelled academically (making straight A’s) and in whatever limited athletics were available for women. At the age of 15, she moved to Detroit when her father went to work for Michigan-Wisconsin Pipeline Company and after two years in the frozen north, she graduated as Salutatorian of her class in 1952. Being a born and raised Texas girl, with deep roots in Texas soil, she chose to return to the Lone Star State and attend SMU. While at SMU she attended First United Methodist Church in downtown Dallas. She graduated with Honors in 1956 with a major in Sociology and minor in Personnel Management and landed a position in the personnel department of Foremost Dairies.

Carolyn met William C. “Bill” Gorman on 31 December 1956 through a blind date arranged by a fellow employee. He was half-way through his junior year in Electrical Engineering at The University of Texas in Austin. They were married a year later at First Methodist Church on 25 Jan 1957 and then settled in Dallas where Bill was employed by TEMCO Aircraft Company of Garland.

Carolyn loved the Lord, sports and a healthy lifestyle. She was a dedicated fan of the Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys and SMU Mustangs. She worked for several years in the Junior High girls program for the East Dallas YMCA until her first child, John, was born in 1963. She had strong beliefs that a child should be raised by its mother, thus for the next 13 years she was a stay-at-home mom while raising 3 sons and pouring her energies into work for the Church. At various times for the rest of her life she was 5th grade Sunday School teacher, Elementary Sunday School Coordinator, and a member of the Administrative Board. She was a member of the UMW, both at her local church circle level and as President of the UMW North Texas District. She became the teacher of the Inquires Adult Sunday School Class in 1999 and continued as teacher of that class for the next 20 years.

When her youngest child entered 1st grade, Carolyn started working for the Plano School District as a crossing guard, thus able to still be at home when children were out of school. Next step was to do volunteer work in the school library one day a week and she filled in when one of the PE teachers could not come to work. This became a full time job, splitting time between several schools and she was encouraged to take some graduate classes being offered in Plano by TWU. She turned a reluctant start into a dedicated push toward her Master’s Degree in Health Education which she achieved in 1982. She was hired by the Environmental Health Center of Dallas where she became their Patient Coordinator and Health Educator and in this role built up a deep knowledge base of illnesses and treatments for people suffering from toxins and allergens in the environment, the causes and treatments. She turned this knowledge into three major books and created her own publishing company to edit, print and sell these through the Environmental Health Foundation and the Amazon marketplace. Titles were “Less-Toxic Alternatives”, 470 pages; “Our Fragile World”, 60 pages; and “Fungus, Mold and Mycotoxins”, 60 pages.

After partial retirement from the EHC-D in 2000, Carolyn was asked by Janet Dauble, chairman of a non-profit organization for the environmentally sensitive that was titled “Share, Care and Prayer”, to install an EI (Environmental Illness) Answer Phone line in her house and help callers from all over the country learn EI and find treatment. She was still working in her home office for EHC-D and taking EI Answerline calls from around the country up until two weeks before she died.

Carolyn loved animals, especially the 6 pure-bred Shelties she owned. She leaves behind the smallest and smartest of these, 9-year-old Murray. She loved the outdoors and especially camping the mountains of Colorado where she and Bill took their summer vacations since 1977. Over the years they progressed from a Starcraft pop-up tent trailer to a 32 foot Coachman 5-th wheel. In 2005 they invested in property in Pagosa Springs and built a 2100 sq ft cabin on it. Carolyn continued to work of her home office during each summer as though she were working from home in Plano.

Carolyn is predeceased by her parents. She is survived by her husband Bill, her son John of College Station, an Assistant Professor of History at Prairie View A &M; a son James and his wife Lisha of Flemington, New Jersey and son Michael and his wife Tanya of Plano. Also surviving are two grandsons and three granddaughters.

Pallbearers will be: David Balentine, Davis Brunson, Dustin Shultz, Spencer Gorman, Elliott Gorman and Ryan Cole.

Visitation will be held Tuesday, August 6, 2024 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at the J. E. Keever Mortuary, 408 N. Dallas Street, Ennis, Texas.

A Celebration of Carolyn’s life will be held Wednesday, August 7, 2024 at 10 a.m. at the same location. Interment will follow in Elm Branch Cemetery in Bardwell, Texas, under the direction of J. E. Keever Mortuary, Inc.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Carolyn’s memory to Minnie’s Pantry of Plano, the North Texas Food Bank or the Salvation Army.