The core of this illuminating memoir consists of threads of consistency and learning that have emerged through Carol’s life experiences. We learn, as she and her sister Linda did, of the constructive optimism of their parents and how that mindset underlies successfully facing life’s struggles. Mistakes can be overcome. The burdens lift. Life is meant for living.With well-balanced sensitivity and striking honesty, she frankly reveals the false starts in her career and her love life and how things worked out in the end. We gain perspective, as she did, through spirited tales of her life experiences.Heart-wrenching events mix with moments of light, hope, and relief. Even the death of loved ones, people, and dogs doesn’t have to be a downward pull, as Carol learned from her dad.Carol has found that angels have an impact on our experiences, too. Although she has never seen an angel, her dogs saw several one evening.Her experiences in finally finding and settling into her career, her love life, and several events that didn’t seem significant, and some that did, all seem to fit together to form those surfacing life threads.
Although Carol Dismore holds a Master of Science degree in mathematics from Montana State University, she changed her vocation early on and worked a 36-year career as a certified public accountant. Since retiring, she keeps her hand in the game by doing the accounting for her church and for a few people she knows, just as a volunteer.
Carol also enjoys writing. Poetry is her medium of choice, and many of her poems have appeared in various periodicals. Being a stickler for precision, she favors rhythm and rhyme. Using the rhythm to enhance the poem’s subject matter, she has written rollicking sagas of her own and her father’s adventures, heartfelt tales from her own experience and from her mother’s childhood, and, more recently, what she calls ‘downloads from God’, poems that come to her in the middle of the night, unbidden.
Although they don’t have any dogs of their own now, Carol and her husband, Barry, dog-sit for a young beagle. They get their dog-fix that way.
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“Life Threads” A memoir by Carol Dismore is the first-person story of two generations of an American Family. Representing what some refer to as the WWII era “Greatest Generation,” A.B. “Doc” Dismore Jr. and Madge Hogan, later to become Madge Dismore, whose contributions of love, direction, and support have to a large part given their daughters, Carol and Linda, the tools to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the Post War “Baby Boomer” Generation.
Told from Carol’s perspective, this is an interesting account of both her parents’ lives and the lives of Carol and her sister, Linda. Each generation celebrating life’s journey from their humble beginnings through loss and success, challenges and failures, victories, and celebrations. Carol presents a compelling narrative of connections to people, horses and dogs, magpies, and robins.
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Carol Dismore has been a talented writer for a long time. Poetry has been her preferred form. Now, she has written a wonderful memoir about the importance of family, community, history, hard work and dealing with problems that arise in our lives. For example, she tells of yearly family vacations to Glacier National Park.
Carol and her sister Linda have practiced an interesting exercise. They would recall a distinct event and then would write their memory of that experience; afterwards they would share their memories. They discovered they each remembered the event similarly, yet differently.
It was fun to see essays from other members of her family that add to the memoir. A couple of really enjoyable essays were her sister, Linda’s, “Pollywog Pond” and Carol’s, “Winter Mornings.”
One part of her life is her love of dogs and other animals. Sometimes, dogs were from the humane society or given to her from friends or family. She and her husband often dog sit for friends.
She includes world, national and local historical events throughout the memoir. Patriotism and faith have been important to the family.
Overall, she expresses that she has been blessed with a life “well-lived”
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