Carole J. Hayes

Born in Detroit, Michigan on November 21, 1933, Carole J. Hayes was the daughter of Louis F. Dreyer and Ada (Hill) Dreyer.

 As a testament to her parents’ passion for the cinema, they named their daughter—an only child—after Carole Lombard and Joan Crawford. 

Carole Joan Dreyer was a passionate movie-goer herself. During Carole’s adolescence and early teens, Gene Tierney was her favorite actress, and she would often re-enact Tierney’s roles with her other movie-loving childhood friends. 

After graduating from Lincoln High School in Ferndale, Michigan in 1952, Carole attended the University of Detroit but moved to Toledo, Ohio before taking her degree.

 She briefly retained her passion for acting and studied at the Toledo Repertoire Theatre with Philip Baker Hall (Seinfeld’s Lt. Joe Bookman). While living at Kenwood Gardens, she met another resident, a young Ohio State graduate named Richard A. Hayes who was working at Chevrolet and who looked like Paul Newman. 

They were married on January 17, 1959, when Carole took on the greatest role of her life, the dual role of wife and mother. Before the year ended, she would give birth to a son, with a daughter and a second son following in quick succession. 

After sixty-four years of marriage, she lost Richard, and, on Sunday, December 14, at 5:09 pm, Carole succumbed to her final illness. She was 92. She is survived by her three children, Kevin, Kathy, and Brian.