Dolores E. Carron

Dolores Elizabeth "Dolly" (Sadlowski) Carron passed away on December 16, 2025. Born on May 2, 1942 to the late Stella (Swistak) and Walter Sadlowski, she resided in Meriden, CT until she married her husband, Robert, in 1979 and they moved to Newington, CT. Dolores leaves behind her only sister, Carol Lassonde and her husband, Andre, of Ellington; her two nephews in the Boston area: Scott Lassonde and his wife Jessica and their daughters Alexandra, Eleanor, and Eve; Christian Lassonde and his wife, Sarah, and their children Henry, Jacob and Madeline; and several cousins. In her final days she was cared for by her two loving aides, Cecylia Makaros and Sabina Shefer.

Always active and seeking new challenges, Dolores enjoyed many hobbies especially basket making, sewing clothing for herself and her family, making draperies for her home, decorating her home with many crewel, needlepoint, and counted cross stitch projects for which she also constructed the frames and framed them herself. Her braided rugs won local, state and regional blue ribbons in Junior Women's Club competitions. Her love of music was evidenced by membership in school and college glee clubs, community choruses and church choirs as well as piano playing for which she began lessons in the summer prior to starting kindergarten.

A graduate of Maloney High School, Dolores went on to complete a B.S. in Nutrition at St. Joseph College (now the University of Saint Joseph) in West Hartford, CT followed by a dietetic internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT. In later years, she also completed a M.A. in Human Development/Gerontology at St. Joseph College as well as numerous other courses of continuing education.

During her 30-year career as a Registered Dietitian at Hartford Hospital, Dolores worked on various units including medical, surgical, cardiac, cancer, neurology, intensive care and dialysis units. She was also a clinical instructor of dietetic students and interns from both UConn and St. Joseph College. Additionally, she served 10 years as a nutrition consultant at Elmcrest Psychiatric Institute in Portland, CT. In her field of nutrition, she was a guest speaker at many professional and community organizations including but not limited to those of dietitians, nurses, physicians, physical therapists, medical students, senior citizens, renal failure patients, breast cancer survivors, lymphedema sufferers and cardiac patients.

Professionally, Dolores had been a member, director on the boards and held various offices in local, state and national dietetic associations and the National Kidney Foundation. She was a preceptor for the Hospital, Institutional, Educational Food Service Supervisor students and served as the state advisor for their professional organization. She was also the advisor/liaison for the Employees Council. For many years, she authored weekly "Ask A Dietitian" columns in the Meriden Record-Journal and Hartford Courant newspapers.

Even after poor health caused her early retirement from a 30-year career as a Registered Dietitian at Hartford Hospital, Dolores maintained her intellectual curiosity, as she avidly read and self-studied professional literature.

Devoted to increasing public awareness of the rare disorder, Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS), by which she became affected more than 30 years ago, Dolores gained publicity in numerous newspapers, television, and public radio venues and after co-hosting the first nationwide gathering of PLS sufferers in 2000, she formed the first-in-the-world PLS support group, the CT Connection. In the time up to her death, Dolores had organized more than 40 meetings of the group.

As a champion of handicapped matters, her Letter to the Editor of the Hartford Courant in 2006, received recognition at their Awards Ceremony and was the impetus for introduction of a bill to the CT legislature for reform and standardization of CT absentee ballot protocol for handicapped citizens. She received commendation from the Town of Newington as well.

PLS is a rare neuromuscular disorder only affecting one in 10 million. It is estimated that there are only 500 people in the United States with this rare variant of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Today, people with PLS communicate with each other through emails in an international Yahoo group called PLS-Friends. PLS was relatively unknown to even the medical world, so it took almost 10 years, many tests and evaluations by more than a dozen doctors in prestigious medical centers for her to get a diagnosis. It was then another 5 years after that before she met another person with the same disorder through a chance meeting at the pool they were going for aqua therapy.

To date, there is no known cause, cure or treatment for this debilitating disorder and in its advanced stages people may experience weakness, muscle pain, spasticity, inability to walk, talk or use their hands. Dolores remained committed to research that was seeking a cure or treatment and in addition to financial support she was a volunteer subject in several PLS research studies.

Until PLS took away her strength and mobility, Dolores and Bob enjoyed ballroom dancing and extensive travelling. During the final years of her life, when confined to her home, Dolores reached out to a multitude of homebound friends through her mail ministry as she showered them with frequent mailings of inspirational, motivational and humorous printings from her computer.

Relatives and friends are invited to visit with Dolly's family on Sunday, December 21st from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Duksa Family Funeral Home at Newington Memorial, 20 Bonair Avenue, Newington. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Monday, December 22nd at 10:00 a.m. at St. Stanislaus Church, 82 Akron Street, Meriden. Everyone is asked to meet directly at the church. She will be laid to rest beside her husband, Bob, in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Ann Street, Meriden. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations are requested for St. Stanislaus Church, 82 Akron Street, Meriden, CT 06450 or for The ALS Association-Connecticut Chapter, 4 Oxford Road, Unit D4, Milford, CT 06460 for Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS) research. To share a condolence with her family, please visit www.duksa.net.