Carol Rafferty Cohen
1944-2019 Uniontown
Beloved daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, colleague and friend Carol Rafferty Cohen passed away peacefully in her home after a short illness on Tuesday, October 1, 2019.
“Carol Ann” was born in Uniontown July 29, 1944, to Hugh Rafferty and Margarette Klink Rafferty, the proprietors of a successful radio (and later, television) store. An only child, she excelled both academically and socially, graduating at the top of her class at Uniontown Senior High School (Class of 1962), where she was also yearbook editor and president of the National Honor Society.
Carol attended the University of Pittsburgh on an academic scholarship, where she was a proud member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and graduated in three years with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. After graduating, she pursued her dream of seeing the world by joining Pan Am as a stewardess. Over her decade-long career at Pan Am, she was promoted to become an instructor at its prestigious Flight Service Academy and later worked in a variety of management roles that took her from New York to Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In 1978, she married Leonard Cohen, an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board, and settled in the Bay Area. She returned to the healthcare field, obtaining a master’s in counseling psychology from the University of San Francisco.
In 1980, Carol’s only child, a daughter, Stephanie Lynn Cohen, was born, and the family soon moved to Atlanta, where Leonard had been appointed a judgeship.
Leonard passed away tragically in 1984 at age 42 from pancreatic cancer, and Carol relocated to Scottsdale, Ariz., and later, Pebble Beach, Calif. During these years, she was a hands-on and loving single mother while also building an accomplished career as a substance abuse counselor and later, as a public health nurse for Monterey County. In this latter role, she bravely and compassionately served at-risk youth in the gang community and foster care system. For her service, she was awarded Monterey County Employee of the Year for 2001, selected from more than 4,000 county employees.
In her retirement, Carol settled in Camarillo, Calif., where she made countless friends through her involvement in the local genealogy community, and volunteerism with various charitable organizations.
She will be forever cherished by her daughter, Stephanie Cohen Mitchell and son-in-law Matthew Mitchell, her grandsons, Quinn and Andrew Mitchell, and her granddaughter Annabel Mitchell, all of Agoura Hills, Calif.
She is preceded in death by her parents, Hugh and Margarette; her husband, Leonard; and her trio of beloved Shih Tzus, Mei Ling, Lady Liana Pooh Bear and Lola del Palacio.