- Date Of Birth: January 5, 1934
- Date Of Death: August 10, 2016
- State: Indiana
Mayo Swan McCarty, beloved wife, mother, Nana, sister, and friend, passed peacefully from this life on Wednesday, August 10th, 2016. She was born Mary Mitchell Swan on January 5, 1934, in Duluth, Minnesota, the daughter of Mary Lenore Mitchell Swan and William Davis Swan. After graduating from Dow Memorial High School in Midland, Michigan, she attended Bryn Mawr College on a regional scholarship. During that time, she met Laurence “Larry” Reed McCarty, the man with whom she would spend the next 62 years of her life.
They married on February 3rd, 1954, in Midland, and their life together would bring them three beautiful daughters and five remarkable grandchildren. Mayo’s heart was filled with love and a call to help others. She was a lifelong member of the Junior League, first in Montclair, New Jersey and later in Louisville, Kentucky. This call to service would motivate her to help others in need for the rest of her life. After surviving a tragic burn in 1983, Mayo became a passionate member and supporter of the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors, where she forged many lifelong friendships. Her experiences later led her to volunteer for the burn unit of the Jewish Hospital of Louisville where she helped other burn survivors process their trauma and adjust to life after being burned.
She drew upon her experience as a survivor to bring comfort and support to those in need, and no-doubt served as a source of strength for many. Mayo and Larry also shared a love for caving and exploration, a passion that would lead them to travel across the United States and eventually become co¬owners of Diamond Caverns in Park City, Kentucky. She loved to regale her grandchildren with tales of her subterranean adventures. Her greatest love, though, was for her family.
She is survived by her husband Larry, her brothers William Davis “Pete” Swan Jr. and Stephen Christopher Swan, her sister Sarah Elizabeth Swan Bradford, her three daughters, Mary Allison McCarty, Sarah Elizabeth McCarty Solmssen, and Amie Allerton McCarty, as well as her five grandchildren, Jared Hawkes Solmssen, Mary Alice York Solmssen, Marguerite Claire Solmssen, Matthew Reed McCarty, and Michael Vincent McCarty. She will always be remembered for her radiant smile and her loving, generous spirit that graced everyone in her presence. She was a ray of light in many lives.
