Carolyn Abel


Carolyn Joyce Abel

Printed by Lafayette Leader
January 5, 1989

Carolyn Joyce Abel, 26, was killed Dec. 20, 1988 in her apartment in Seoul, South Korea. She had been teaching English in Seoul for E.L.S. International for about two months. 

Miss Abel was born June 21, 1962 in Seattle, WA; she lived in the Indianapolis area until moving to West Lafayette in 1974. 

She first became interested in in international affairs and meeting people from other countries when she was an exchange student during her junior year at West Lafayette High School and spent a summer in Denmark.

After she returned and graduated from West Lafayette High School in 1980, she took an intensive course in German at the University of California in Santa Cruz and then attended the Schiller University at Heidelberg, West Germany. She began attending the Parson's School of Design in Paris in 1982 through 1984 and finished her course work at Parson's in New York in 1986. 

Miss Abel was very creative and artistic; she majored in photography while in college. After graduation, she spent a summer working in England, took graduate courses at University De Lyon and Alliance Francoise at Lyon, France and then returned to the United States and joined the Peace Corps; she taught English in Nepal while in the Peace Corps. After she left the Peace Corps, she took classes at the University of Oregon and became involved in a group called Legacy International whose focus was teaching leadership and personal growth for international students. In the summer of 1987, she was a counselor at the camp for Legacy International in Virginia. There she worked with other international students, teaching photography and also serving as camp photographer, documenting camp activities.

She had only been in Seoul for a few months when she returned to her apartment and was killed for no apparent reason. It is ironic that she, who had done so much to promote world peace and had spread so much goodwill throughout the world, should meet such an untimely and unnecessary death. She loved the Korean people; she found them vibrant and was impressed with their good nature. Those who knew Miss Abel said that she was a person who truly knew no prejudices and liked meeting people everywhere. She never met a stranger and wanted to help people all over the world. Although she only lived 26 years, she had seen and accomplished much in her short, productive life.
Surviving are her mother, Mrs. Evelyn Abel of Lafayette, her father and stepmother, Dr. Francis L. Abel and Dr. Anne Abel of Columbia, SC; two sisters, Wanda Abel of Denver, CO; and Donna Braus of Herndon, VA; a half-brother, Jonathan Abel of Columbia; and her maternal grandmother, Mary Rerschauer of Zearing, IA.

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