Carolyn Faye Renner

Carolyn Faye Renner (née Coffey), 86, of Windsor, Colorado, passed away on October 6, 2026.

Carolyn was born on December 21, 1939 in Omaha, Nebraska, to Bernard and Malvina Coffey. She attended Westchester High School in Los Angeles, CA and went on to work as a seamstress at Jerry Lewis Productions, including movies such as Li’l Abner, The Bellboy, and The Ladies Man, as well as movies such as My Geisha, Hatari and GI Blues with Elvis Presley for Paramount Pictures.

In 1960, Carolyn married Vernon G. Renner in Los Angeles, CA. Together, they raised four very active children. Carolyn was a passionate seamstress (she made clothes for all her kids until they were twelve!) and an active member of St. Mary’s Church in Walnut Creek, CA and Our Lady of the Valley Church in Windsor, CO.

Carolyn was preceded in death by her husband, Vernon "Vern" Renner, in 2024 and by her brother, Richard Coffey. She is survived by her four children, Chris (Kathy), Tricia, Douglas (Shelley), and Jennifer (Chadd); seven grandchildren, Megan, Lauren, Cade, Paige, Calli, Peyton, Campbell, Elly and Olivia; and her sister, Mary Pat.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on October 13, 2026, at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in Windsor, Colorado. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to March of Life (marchoflife.org).

Born on the first day of winter, there was nothing cold about our mother, Carolyn. She was as warm as a pot-bellied stove in a Nebraska farmhouse, as animated as any cartoon character on a Saturday morning, and as industrious as a bumblebee in a wildflower garden. She did not sit still.

Like Funicello and Avalon, she met her husband on the beach, got engaged five weeks later at nineteen, married before age 21, and spent nearly 65 years loving the same man with as much fervor as a lovesick teenager. And she raised four very independent kids. She was the engine that kept our family moving forward.

Mom was always doing something, whether it was schlepping kids everywhere, refurbishing furniture, supporting her husband's career, volunteering for some school function, or sewing endlessly, including a wedding dress. Over the years, she was a See's Candy girl, a seamstress for a few movie studios, a den mother, a Bluebird adult leader, a fundraiser, and the unofficial lycra swim-fabric designer for a girls' swim team that swam very fast. Did I mention that we never wore a store-bought piece of clothing until we turned 12? She made sure everyone else would shine.

Like her determined father, she was a tinkerer. Mom could fix clocks, revive carburetors, lay bricks, and cook meals that would last a week. She never waited for someone else to solve a problem.

To ensure that her kids were self-sufficient, we counted buttons at two, learned to read by four, became household labor by six, were largely left to our own devices by ten, held jobs by fourteen, and were being taught to drive, with Mom's feet firmly planted on the dashboard, before sixteen.

She was never allowed to be sick.

Among her many accomplishments, she won a lamp-throwing contest, lost a child at Disneyland, indirectly taught her sons the fine art of breaking and entering, bandaged every scrape, provided a shoulder whenever needed, and dispensed wisdom without anyone ever realizing they were receiving it. She never received a trophy.

When she was a teenage girl, it was said that Carolyn could walk into a room and consume all the oxygen, such was her sense of importance. Yet for those who knew her during the last sixty-seven years of her life, she became the most unselfish center of everyone else's universe you could imagine. It took nearly 86 years for her pilot light to diminish, but her radiant warmth will last forever.

She will never be forgotten.