Carolyn Sinclair

Dec 21, 1935 - Feb. 2, 2020

San Jose

Warner Heights won’t be the same without Carolyn Sinclair.

In this close-knit neighborhood in San Jose’s east foothills, once surrounded by apricot orchards, she and her late husband Chuck built their forever home in 1964 and raised their three daughters. It’s where Carolyn was the unofficial ringleader of all things fun for the neighborhood kids -- from Halloween haunted houses in her garage to Fourth of July fireworks in the cul-de-sac. It’s also the place where, for decades, she would open her home to anyone who needed a safe place to stay. She was always kind. She never judged.

For Halloween, neighborhood kids spent days helping her prepare the haunted house, from painting coffins in the backyard and practicing jumping out of them, to cutting holes in rain boots so they could kneel but look like they were hanging.

In the summer, she would load up the kids in the back of her white Ford station wagon for trips to Frontier Village, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, or for spontaneous trips to Baskin Robbins at the corner of Story and White roads for ice cream cones. She took them kite flying. She picked up hitchhikers.

Carolyn died peacefully here on Feb. 2 in her sleep watching the super bowl. She was 84.

That she died on Super Bowl Sunday is auspicious. Her eldest daughter, Evelyn, also died on Super Bowl Sunday in 2000. Evelyn’s funeral was held on Feb. 13, the same day eight years later that Carolyn’s husband of 53 years passed away. Carolyn’s two surviving daughters, Marian and Kersten, will hold their mother’s funeral on Feb. 13, at the family’s church where the girls went to school and Carolyn spent years volunteering -- St. John Vianney.

Carolyn was a thirdgeneration Californian, born in San Francisco on Dec. 21, 1935, the eighth child of Rose and William Mowry. She considered becoming a nun. At 16 she met Chuck and fell in love. Charles Albert Sinclair was 17 and leading a community play. As the story goes, Carolyn was too shy and “couldn’t sing a note” to land a part, but at 5-foot-2, was too cute to pass up. She became his assistant. They married three years later in 1955 and together the young couple worked day and night to support their family. As the years passed, Carolyn was always there for her husband, family, siblings, nieces and nephews and the neighborhood friends.

Her door was always open, whether for quick after school snacks or to move-in for months at a time. Carolyn made the Sinclair home a safe haven and integral to the core of their family values. Carolyn was a beloved mother, grandmother and great grandmother and will be greatly missed. She is survived by her daughters: Marian Rose Sinclair Viets and her husband Wes, and Kersten Sinclair Buck and her husband Nicholas; her five grandchildren: Jordan Sinclair Wolf and Hayden Karl Sinclair Wolf, Emelia Rose Buck, Frances Violet Buck and Evelyn Michael Pascal Buck and great grandchild Harper Charles Sinclair McGinnis.

A funeral mass will be held at 11:30 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 13, at St. John Vianney Catholic Church at 4600 Hyland Drive, San Jose. in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. John Vianney Church School.