Carole G. Brown

The world lost one of its kindest souls; Carole Gilbert Brown (Mom/Mimi) passed away peacefully on May 14, 2026. Born in Plainfield, NJ, on July 29, 1945, Carole was an aspiring and talented artist from a very young age. She graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School in 1963 and went on to attend college at Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Tech) as an art major. She transitioned from art to journalism while in college and graduated in 1967 with a degree in English. She started her professional life as an English teacher at Keystone Oaks High School.   

Carole moved into journalism to better balance her career and motherhood. She first worked for The Signal Item in Carnegie, PA, and then became a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, covering community news in the West. Over the years she wrote thousands of articles and won numerous awards, but above all she was most passionate about the feature stories that she covered. She was well known with the byline “Carole Gilbert Brown.” She loved getting to know people and learning their stories, and she shared their lives on paper in the most human and compassionate ways. 

Carole loved reading books and magazines, and she exercised her creative mind in many of her hobbies. She was a talented calligrapher and did many wedding invitations and baby announcements for friends and family over the years. She also loved cross-stitching and produced many beautiful pieces for her home and for others. She loved her cats, Mindy and Gracie, both of whom loved her dearly in return. 

Among her most notable qualities was her devotion to the people in her life. Fiercely loyal to her family, friends, and community, she was incredibly selfless and went out of her way to make people feel special. She was the heart of the holidays, which included the best chocolate chip cookies ever (that no one has successfully replicated) and believed that everyone deserved to be honored and celebrated on their birthdays (often through creative scavenger hunts that everyone remembers fondly). She advocated for others with endless tenacity, and much of her life was spent serving others, which she did willingly and humbly. She made everyone she touched better and kinder. She will be incredibly missed. 

Carole is preceded in death by her parents, Carlisle and Dorothy Gilbert, and is survived by her husband of almost 59 years, Ben, her daughter, Leslie Bockman (Ed), her son David (Sonya), her sister, Judy Goerges (Pete), and her beloved grandchildren, Alyssa, Gabi, Seth, Chase, Harrison, and Pierce. 

A Celebration of Carole’s Life will be held on August 9, 2026 from 3:00pm-5:30pm at The Cellar at Sophia’s Pittsburgh, 318 Forest Grove Road, Coraopolis, PA. To honor her love of art and celebrate how much kindness she brought into our lives, please feel free to wear a bright color of your choosing. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to your local library or the Carnegie Library to honor Carole’s love of literature and history.  

https://www.carnegielibrary.org/give/