Community honors late Carolyn New for her giving spirit

Jun. 28—A tribute to the late Carolyn New, her first husband, Bob Padgett, and her second husband, Brother J.S. New, was unveiled at the Carr Veterans Memorial Park this weekend.

Family, friends and members of her church family gathered at the park on Sunday — waiting out a passing thunderstorm — to celebrate the tribute to a woman who was known for helping so many.

Carolyn New was 70 years old when she passed away on August 24, 2017. She had been working at Denham Street Baptist Church that day, continuing to help at the church she and her late husband J.S. founded.

She was murdered while trying to give food to a homeless man — an act of kindness from Carolyn that those attending the memorial said was a part of her character.

"She wouldn't let anyone go hungry. She was even like that about strangers," her son Jonathan New said.

" ... She would see people not for what they maybe were at that present moment. She wouldn't see people for what they did. She would see people for their potential, and that's something we all should strive to be like," he said.

Carolyn's daughter, Barbara Padgett, saw the parallels between the way her father — Carolyn's first husband — died and the way Carolyn died.

When Carolyn was just 23, she lost her husband Bob after he stopped to help out a stranded motorist on the side of the road. A tractor-trailer ran over the group.

"My dad gave his life trying to help somebody, and so many years later, my mom did the same thing," Barbara Padgett said through the tears. "I think its special when someone lays their life down for someone else, and this is a veterans park, and that's what our armed forces do for us."

J.S. himself had served six years in the armed services before becoming a pastor.

The monument at Carr Veterans Memorial Park bears a stone with Carolyn's name sitting in between two others, one for each of Carolyn's husbands.

Standing alongside Carolyn's stone is a statue of a woman extending a cup of water and some bread to some unseen person in need.

Pastor Jeff Griffith, Denham Street Baptist's current pastor, explained how important it was to remember Carolyn New's giving nature, especially after the tragic events surrounding her death.

While Griffith refused to say the name of the man who had murdered Carolyn, he did say that man, "took from the family. He took from the church. He took from the community. I've struggled with it for some time privately, quietly."

Griffith said he had said to God, "She didn't deserve that ... having served God and served her church all those years. To be honest with you, I stayed angry for quite some time about the whole thing.

"And one day I was reading in the bible," he said. He quoted a passage from Mark 9:41. "'Whosoever shall give a cup of water shall not lose his or her reward.' And though we felt lost, and though he took from us, there's one thing nobody can ever take. Carolyn would be rewarded for what happened. She was giving a cup of water and something to eat. And she was doing it in Jesus's name."

Jonathan New said that his mother was always trying to feed everyone in the family. That need to help once got her in trouble at her job as a lunchroom employee at Jonathan's school.

He said she had been told she was handing out too much food. He remembered his mother saying, "Shoot, there's no way that them little fellers are going to look at me with those hungry eyes and hungry bellies and me keep food from them."

He said she knew that could possibly be their only meal that day, and having grown up in poverty herself, Carolyn wanted to help anyone she could to keep them from going hungry.

While Denham Street Baptist was Carolyn's home church, Clifty Street Baptist Church and its pastor Randy Wiles were the sponsors for her monument.

David Carr, the park's administrator, said that was because Denham Street Baptist Church had already sponsored a Vietnam cross at the park.

Wiles had a personal connection to J.S. and Carolyn, saying they were instrumental in his upbringing in the church.

"Everyone standing here, in some way, some fashion or form, J.S. and Carolyn made an impact on your life," he told the crowd, adding that many found Jesus through their ministry.