Carol Lea Gross (nee Kelly), age 65, of Southampton, Pennsylvania passed away on Thursday, May 11, 2023. Carol was born in Fort Polk, Louisiana on September 13, 1957, but relocated weeks later and considered herself a lifelong resident of Bucks County.  Carol is survived by her three siblings: Diane Varner of Dinwiddie, Virginia, Gail Kelly of Cornville, Maine, and Raymond Kelly, of Ocean, New Jersey. Additionally, her mother, Florence Bowker Schoer of Holland, Pennsylvania, was a nationally recognized breeder of collies and passed away in 2012.

Carol was a proud graduate of both Council Rock High School and Episcopal School of Nursing.  Early on, Carol heeded the calling to help those in need and did so as a registered nurse for over three decades through her service at St. Mary's, Warminster, and Abington Memorial Hospitals.
Carol's later tenure in nursing, would lead the way for the field of home care at the beginning of the new millennium until her eventual retirement.

Carol proudly spent her retirement promoting a cause close to her heart: literacy. She spent countless volunteer hours at local libraries including the Abington Township Public Library and the Meadowbrook School Library cataloging books and tutoring students. Additionally, she was also an active volunteer for the Bucks County Democratic Committee, and most notably is remembered for calling registered voters for the 2020 presidential election.

Carol is also survived by her husband, James B. Gross III, of Southampton, Pennsylvania, who she was married to for over 37 happy years. The two celebrated many anniversaries in the Poconos as well as on vacations to see their favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, and cruises. She is also survived by her two children, James B. Gross IV, and his husband, Andrew Merrill Sawyer of Catskill, New York, and Katherine E. Gross of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During their childhood, Carol could always be seen volunteering at their grade schools, Abington Friends School and the Meadowbrook School, either as snack mom, postprom coordinator or the organizer of the book fair.

But most of all in her retirement, Carol loved spending time down the shore with her family, friends, and neighbors at the Dolphin Beach  Condominium in Sea Isle City, New Jersey. Nothing beat to Carol a bright-sunny day sitting on the beach, drinking a Diet Peach Snapple, with her feet buried in the sand, and reading the latest novel by her favorite author, James Patterson.

She was an avid proponent that fun should be first in life and she lived her life by that mantra by driving fast cars, rooting for the Fightin' Phillies, V's Up for the Villanova Wildcats, and admiring every year the 4 th of July night sky peppered with various arrays of fireworks.

Over the past two years, Carol was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called "Frontaltemporal Lobe Dementia", which she and her family fought to diagnose. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations to help fund research about this disease be made to the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center Gift Fund: https://www.med.upenn.edu/ftd/donate/