Carole Cain

(Wanda) Carole Cain

June 22, 1962 - September 18, 2025

Carole Cain, 63, passed away peacefully surrounded by family at Hospice House of Spokane at 10:44 PM on Thursday, September 18, 2025.

Born on base at Fort Irwin, California in the Mojave Desert on June 22, 1962, Carole was the daughter of Mack Hayward Cain and Delores Broadus Cain. As part of a military family, she experienced life in 27 different locations throughout her childhood, a journey that shaped her adaptable spirit and broad perspective on the world.

Carole graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 1984 with an AB in Anthropology, and earned her PhD in Anthropology from UNC Chapel Hill in 1995. That same year she graduated from Brown, she moved to Pittsboro, North Carolina, a place she came to love deeply and often mentioned wanting to return to in her final years.

Carole distinguished herself as an accomplished academic researcher in Anthropology, conducting ethnographic work with Appalachian peoples and, from October 1989 to May 1991, studying societal norms around the mentally ill in Costa Rica and El Salvador, and undertaking an immersive assignment with an isolated island tribe in Panama where she worked without a shared language. She authored the book "Wandering the Streets Without Direction" and contributed to papers published in major medical and anthropological journals. She co-authored several other published works in Anthropology, leaving a meaningful scholarly legacy. Despite her professional achievements, Carole wished to be remembered most for her love of animals and her Christian values.

From 1989 to 1992, Carole courageously battled cancer, achieving successful treatment and survivorship. Remarkably, she conducted much of her fieldwork in Central America during her cancer treatment, demonstrating extraordinary resilience and dedication to her research. Her faith and compassion for others remained constant sources of light in her life.

In 2008, Carole made the selfless decision to move across the country from North Carolina to Spokane, Washington, to care for her terminally ill brother. She later became a devoted caretaker for her parents and found great joy in caring for local dogs and cats during her final years. Those who knew Carole remember her as deeply involved in the well-being of others, caring little for personal possessions or wealth, but richly invested in acts of kindness and service.

A voracious reader with a passion for poetry and theology, Carole was known by friends for her generous nature and her gift of accepting others as they were. She supported numerous charitable causes including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Wycliffe Bible Translation, and the Humane Society, and was a frequent blood and platelet donor.

Carole was preceded in death by her mother, Delores Broadus Cain, and her siblings, Mark Cain and Melanie Housley, and her nephew Carson Cain. She is survived by her father, Mack Cain, and her two nephews, Colten Cain and Matthew Bennett.