Carola (Cśiky) Wolf

Carola Cśiky Wolf, age 99, died Thursday, January 15, 2026, in Donaldson, Indiana.

Carola was born at home on her family’s farm June 26, 1926, in Rich Grove Township, Pulaski County, Indiana. Her parents were Albert Cśiky and Irene Pesitz Cśiky, Szekler-Hungarian and Hungarian immigrants from Maros-Torda and Budapest. She remained fiercely proud of her Magyar heritage but was thoroughly and gratefully American. In her family, she was the first of her generation to speak English before she began grammar school in 1932.

Raised with her on the farm were her beloved siblings Albert, Irene, Louis, Florence and Olga, all of whom, as well as her anya és apa, preceded her in death. Also raised on the farm were her other playmates: countless cows, horses, ducks, geese, turkeys, pigs, chickens, the occasional sheep or goat, and a lot of dogs. She adored dogs. In later years, she always had a pooch around. Kublai Khan and Burma were the ones most precious to her and were doubtless waiting with the others for her recent arrival.

Her chores on the farm centered around the chickens and the ducks and she talked of them fondly until the day before her death. Until her final days she remembered a surprising number of their individual names and traits. She left the farm, but the farm never left her.

Upon graduating from North Judson High School in 1945, she moved to Chicago and joined Irene and Florence. Her intent was to be Rosie the Riveter but her first employer was Riverview Amusement Park. She loved the job but after months of traveling from a far South Side Hungarian enclave to Roscoe Village on the far North Side, she went to work at Spiegel’s in Bridgeport. That is where she met John Otto Wolf in 1946 after he returned from the Pacific. He thought she was a dead ringer for Ruth Roman and was immediately smitten. They wed in the summer of 1946. Their first son, John, arrived in September 1947. James showed up in 1950; Audrey in 1958. John the elder preceded Carola in 1992. All their children survive to celebrate her life and rejoice in her passing to the embrace of Christ. Also surviving are four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

In 1971, she decided to rejoin the workforce she had left 25 years earlier. A talented seamstress, for a time she managed the large Fabrific store on Western Avenue. When she retired, she went about gardening her brains off, both at her home in the Scottsdale neighborhood and later, at her son’s egg farm near Culver. Her gardening skills became important, then, because she soon altered the standard egg farm procedure of allowing hens to egg out and become soup ingredients to each having an individual and respectful burial after retirement. Sometimes a long retirement. The farm, although never achieving profitability, remains dotted with dozens of individual tulip beds over dozens of individual graves. And the chickens loved her, gathering around her every day for breakfast and bedtime.

Carola sold her Scottsdale home in 2023 and moved to independent living at Maria Center in Donaldson. The Sisters and their associates and employees were wonderful to her. She had many friends there and especially appreciated “the one who makes sure I get my milk.”  Staff members Christine and Tiffany were extraordinarily kind and patient with Carola, and she was crazy about them. Tiffany, in the company of sweet people from Traditions Health, cared for her with great grace and love at the very end. Christine and Tiffany introduced her to a special nurse, Jessica, who quickly became a loving friend as much as a caregiver.

Among her friends at Maria Center, she especially liked meeting Damon for breakfast. They would frequently race each other to see who could be first in line. She usually won.

Providing especial attention with the Sacrament and the Commendation of the Dying near her leave taking were Pastors Rohde and Ahlemeyer from Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church. Carola was baptized, lived, and died in Christ. She now lives with and in Him.

Family and friends will gather to celebrate Carola’s life at 10:00 am Wednesday, January 21, at her parish home, Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1314 North Michigan Street, Plymouth. Funeral services will follow at 11:00 am, with lunch served afterwards in the Parish Hall. After lunch, graveside services will follow at Highland Cemetery, South Bend. Please join us to say farewell to a faithful Christian, a great mom, and a good friend to chickens and ducks (and other critters) everywhere.

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