Caroline Gavin Arnold, 95, died peacefully on April 1, 2025 at the Linda Manor Skilled Nursing Facility in Leeds, Massachusetts. We have lost our wonderful mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt, and friend.
Caroline was born to Helen and Phillip Gavin in 1930 and raised with her three older sisters Phyllis (“Bunny”) ’37, Sarah (“Sally”) ’39, and Mary ’44 in Norton, Massachusetts. She received her education at Northampton School for Girls, founded by her Aunt Sarah Whitaker, and Sophie Newcombe College of Tulane University which she left to marry Richard D. Pickett and start a family. She was proud to finish her college education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she graduated with a degree in Anthropology at the age of 37. At UMASS, she also worked as an assistant to the Dean of Foreign Students and attended graduate level seminars. Passionate about native plants, she received a Certificate in Native Plant Studies from The New England Wildflower Society at Garden in the Woods, Framingham, MA in 1998.
Caroline and her first husband settled in Leeds with their three children. In 1958 they moved to a home on Puffer’s Pond in Amherst which became her oasis. She was always the first person to take a swim in the early spring and the last in the late fall. She skated there in the winter and traversed the local trails on foot and cross-country skis.
Caroline divorced in 1966 and remarried Dr. Gordon Arnold and became stepmother to his five children. Through the UMASS Anthropology Department they formed a wide and eclectic circle of lifelong friends. Caroline and Gordon enjoyed adventures together such as alpine skiing in Europe, stints in Grenada and Thailand where Gordon volunteered his surgical skills and many foreign trips with their friends including to Central America, Europe, and Morocco.
Throughout her life, Caroline maintained a keen curiosity and a thirst for learning. She could pretty much do anything she set her mind to and would tackle any project-whether it be butchering a deer or restoring antique furniture and gilded picture frames. Among her other varied skills, she was a talented watercolor artist, expert gardener, invasive plant crusader, naturalist, and exceptional cook/baker. In her younger days, she raised, groomed and showed poodles and also lent a hand grooming the family Morgan horses. While helping her children fix up their homes, she acquired the nickname “Granny Gooper” (referencing joint compound) after developing a talent for drywall installation.
Caroline relished good food, good drink, and good company. She was an early adopter of Julia Child’s cookbooks and brought home recipes from her travels abroad that inspired countless feasts for friends and family. She was a sucker for blue-eyed men including Bing Crosby, Paul Newman, her first husband Richard, her second husband Gordon, and her last gentleman friend John Murphy whom she met in her late 80s while residing at the Lathrop Community.
Caroline was one of a kind and a true bon vivant. She will be remembered as smart, funny, fearless, and incredibly generous to those who knew and adored her. She taught us to be serious about what you love but not take yourself too seriously.
She is survived by her three children, Molly Pickett (m. Steve Tirrell), Jack Pickett ’72 (m. Julie Pickett), Lucy Pickett, three stepchildren, four grandchildren, four great grandchildren as well as many beloved nieces and nephews and dear friends.
In lieu of flowers,donations can be made to Trustees of the Reservation at thetrustees.org or Kestrel Land Trust at kestreltrust.org
Our family would like to thank the staff on Forestview unit at Linda Manor for their care.