Summary of the service by her husband, Choppy Cusachs:

We put the picture of Carol Lee from the 1970s on the front of the box of ashes, reminding all of how we expect her to look when we are all united in the presence of the Lord.

Three bishops officiated at the funeral, and three more attended, letting me sit between my daughters and relax. First there were honors from the fire department -- Carol Lee had been a volunteer for more than a decade. Then the American Legion Auxiliary did its ceremony of the broken circle. The Marian Servants then honored her as one of the founding members of their local community.

Then we began the ceremony, starting with the Celebration recording of "The King of Love My Shepherd Is", her favorite hymn. The prayers and readings that followed were from the 1928 BCP, which we use. The service closed with the Celebration recording of "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say." Family and close friends did the readings and the bishops alternated reading the prayers.

For the first time the crowd was too big for the great room configured as church, so doors and windows were opened and folding chairs set up on the breezeways. The fire department loaned us folding chairs, and ran a golf car shuttle between this building and the street. Our neighbors across the way let us park cars along their road back. Sunday the two bishops from Texas joined me celebrating Holy Communion for those still here. Somehow white was right.

Now the ashes are in consecrated ground and the family and friends who came from Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, Austin, Atlanta, and points less far away have  all returned home. One cousin came from California.