Delaware Christian’s Art overcomes adversity

Car­o­line Art

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Delaware Chris­t­ian School’s Car­o­line Art hasn’t decided on a col­lege yet, but is look­ing at schools in sun­nier cli­mates, includ­ing in Florida at Clear­wa­ter Chris­t­ian Col­lege or Pen­sacola Chris­t­ian Col­lege; Bob Jones Uni­ver­sity in South Car­olina is also being considered.

“I’m a sun per­son,” Car­o­line explained.

“I have 10 blan­kets on my bed now,” she said, adding that her father gives her a blan­ket every year at Christmas.

Car­o­line can go two years before declar­ing a major. Her inter­ests lie in either med­ical or law school. Her father is an attor­ney, who pro­vides the impe­tus for con­sid­er­a­tion of law school.

“I love the law,” she said. 

It was an ear­lier ill­ness and the care from doc­tors that pro­vided her inter­est in med­i­cine. If she chooses a med­ical pro­fes­sion, she is debat­ing a future as either a pedi­a­tri­cian or a heart surgeon.

Car­o­line has vol­un­teered at the Ronald McDon­ald House since sev­enth grade, serv­ing a meal once a month through her church. Becom­ing ill her­self around the 9th grade, she can relate to the sick chil­dren there, she said.

Car­o­line was diag­nosed with gas­tro­pare­sis, a stom­ach ill­ness for which there is no cure.

Car­o­line became sick her fresh­man year, and con­tin­ued being ill until the start of her junior year, going in and out of Children’s Hospital. 

Attend­ing Delaware Chris­t­ian since kinder­garten, she has grown up with most of the small 25-member senior class, she said.

So far, senior year has been good, she said.

“I like it a lot,” Car­o­line said, adding she only has four classes, but uses the remain­der of her school day work­ing on the year­book, home­work and writ­ing papers. She remains at school to drive her sib­ling and cousins home at the end of each day.

“Last year there were 10 of us here at the school,” she said of her extended family.

Christi Quist is year­book advi­sor at the school and has worked with Car­o­line as a mem­ber of the year­book staff for the past three years.

“This year, she is the stu­dent life editor,” Quist said of Car­o­line. “She is one of the most self­less peo­ple I know. She is always look­ing for ways to help oth­ers or encour­age her fel­low stu­dents. She is sin­cere and gen­uine, openly hon­est and car­ing. I rarely hear her com­plain, even though she had to bat­tle her way back from poor health last year, and make up a lot of miss­ing work, she did it with such a sweet spirit, never grum­bling. She is a liv­ing exam­ple of what thanks­giv­ing should look like.”

Sci­ence teacher Johanna McDon­ald is also impressed with Caroline’s deter­mi­na­tion to do her best in spite of all her dif­fi­cul­ties and health issues.

“She is a hard­work­ing girl and a very good stu­dent,” McDon­ald said. “I was impressed also with her as a junior high stu­dent — always enthu­si­as­tic and always top stu­dent. Then again, in 10th grade with her very sick and absent a full semes­ter, she still asked for work to be sent home to keep up.”

McDon­ald said Caroline’s char­ac­ter has a qual­ity of endurance and a “huge inward strength to accom­plish what she needs to do”

“She is just so joy­ful,” the teacher said. “A nor­mal stu­dent could get very dis­cour­aged with being sick so much.”

David Art has been Caroline’s his­tory and gov­ern­ment teacher since the sev­enth grade.

“I have seen her become a per­son ready to enter the world. She is a hard worker with a good sense of respon­si­bil­ity,” he said. “Car­o­line has a great sense of humor which has car­ried her through per­sonal chal­lenges. I would call her an ‘over comer’ as she has come out on the other side of a difficult-to-diagnose ill­ness that at one point, just over a year ago, had nearly debil­i­tated her. Caroline’s per­se­ver­ance and per­sonal faith in God car­ried her through as she worked at keep­ing up with school.”

Art said that Car­o­line, who is active in her church group, has a pos­i­tive attitude.

“She has the type of per­son­al­ity that attracts other peo­ple, so she has a lot of friends whom, I believe, she has a pos­i­tive impact on,” Art con­tin­ued. “As Caroline’s uncle, I have con­sid­ered it a great priv­i­lege to teach her these past six years, and as play direc­tor, I even got to work with her when she was in ‘Charlotte’s Web’ in the 8th grade. I have many fun mem­o­ries with her in the class­room, as I hope she does. (Some­times it’s hard to be the fun uncle and the his­tory teacher) I will miss her smiles and funny anec­dotes she brings to school as she graduates.”

Try­ing to catch up again in school from her recent ill­ness, Car­o­line is not sure if she will be able to par­tic­i­pate in all that she wants to this year. On her list are the school play, bas­ket­ball, soft­ball and volleyball.

Right now she is help­ing with her father’s recov­ery from recent knee surgery. With an entire knee replace­ment and off work until Feb­ru­ary, her father will need 24 hour a day care, Car­o­line said.

But she is still keep­ing up on her col­lege appli­ca­tions, and advises oth­ers to do the same as well.

“Don’t com­pletely slack off,” she said of her advice toward senior year. But she adds that it is impor­tant to “have fun and make memories.”

Car­o­line is the daugh­ter Andrew and Julia Art of Lewis Center.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Nov 25 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.