Carol J. Wanbaugh

WESTBROOK – Carol J. Wanbaugh, 84, passed away peacefully at her home in Westbrook, on Jan. 31, 2025.

Carol was born on May 25, 1940, to Goldie Sprague and John McCart in Gardner. Her father passed away in the line of duty as a border patrol guard when she was 9-years-old.

Carol had strong ties to the ocean and seafaring communities in Eastport and Presque Isle, having an uncle who was a purse seiner for sardines. She remembers being on the docks as a young girl, the ocean was in her blood.

Carol’s great grandfather, Captain Joseph McCart, from Eastport, was a ship master of the barque, The Sparkling Wave, saving the crew off of the foundering Petrus off the coast of Ireland. He also travelled the globe on more than a dozen ships, including as acting ensign, then acting master of the Civil War barque USS Ethan Allen. Captain McCart later went down on the brig Carrie Winslow, which was hit by a ship in a ferocious storm in New York Harbor in 1878. All of his ephemera is at the Bath Maritime Museum. Carol was so proud to have this nautical heritage.

Carol’s daughter Susan, by her first husband, John Wanbaugh, was a talented graphic artist and jeweler. She was Miss Maine of 1976, of which Carol was extremely proud of.

She met her second husband, John Corsa, in the Gardner area, where they spent many years. They were enthusiastic stewards of the Kennebec River Whatever Races. They moved to Portland in the 1990s, where John worked on the waterfront at Merrill’s Marine Terminal and then Sprague.

Carol was a talented, saucy, beautiful woman. She was a gifted artist, able to see the beauty in the ordinary. She most enjoyed oil painting, of seascapes, mermaids, sharks, lovely flowers and still lifes, and whatever took her fancy- (think dancing ladies in grass skirts, herself being one of them!) She also created amazing sea glass and seashell collages, using many of the treasures she found on the beaches of Florida, where she lived with her mother for a time. She was a lover of all things nautical, a true mermaid herself.

Carol’s professional career was as interesting as she was. She graduated in 1968 with a degree in teaching from the University of Maine. She went on teach for many years. She was a vocational rehabilitation counselor, a Planned Parenthood supervisor, a dental office receptionist, and also had her own cleaning company, cleaning offices in the Portland area.

Carol was also a caregiver, of her mother, her beloved daughter Susan, and her much loved husband John Corsa, until his passing in 2018. She also took in many feral cats, one being her last one “Little Man”.

Carol was a very well-read lady, devouring books, mostly nonfiction, of historical and seafaring adventures in a matter of hours, reading late into the night and early a.m. hours. She was happiest when she had a new stack of books on her night stand. She also was an amazing writer, of letters and also poems- one of which she recently composed for her friend Randy on his birthday in December 2024.

Carol was above all, a very classy lady, with a well-coiffed updo, (with flowers attached), perfect makeup and stylish outfits, jewelry and manicured painted nails and bare feet! (Which in later years she painted with a long paint brush!) She loved life, good food, a good laugh and chat, and all things newsy. She had an appetite for great food, especially seafood, and could cook up a lobster chowder like no other.

Carol had an appetite for life as well. She was an extraordinarily lucky woman, which was evident in her many trips to Oxford casinos, with John and Susan, where she always won big. She won raffles galore when she and John attended company parties. (At one point, she found out, they wouldn’t put her ticket in the pot, because she had won so many times!)

Carol will be sorely missed and lovingly remembered with great fondness. She is dancing in Heaven now, with her predeceased parents, her daughter Susan, her life partner John Corsa, and her special kitty, “Little Man”.

She is survived by special friends, Michel Pothier, Randy and Jennifer Wood, Bunny Rice, Betty Danforth and Donna Dunlap, as well as all of the R.A.s at Larrabee Village, whom she adored, (and they in turn adored her), Lauris, Nikki, Tish, Larissa, and also many other friends who will miss her dearly.

No services are planned per Carol’s wishes. Her’s and her family’s ashes will be buried at sea in the Spring and a celebration of life will be held then.

“Sea Fever”

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by; and the

wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sails shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

– John Masefield

You may share your condolences or offer your memories at http://www.advantagefuneralandcremation.com.


Donations in Carol’s name may be made to Friends of Feral Felines in Portland.