Connie Jean Amireh, a small-town-Missouri girl who raised five children and lovingly served those in need, died peacefully at NorthCare Hospice House in Kansas City in the early morning of October 1, 2026, surrounded by her children. She was 86.
A natural beauty known for her sweetness and jet-black mane of hair, Connie lived a rich life—she leaves behind four children and nine grandchildren.
She was predeceased by her brother James Felt, of Sun City, Arizona, daughter Melanie Van Dyke and grandson William Van Dyke, both of Healdsburg, California, and two ex-husbands.
Quick to giggle and competitive at cards, Connie was known for catching friends and family off-guard with her often-hilarious April Fool’s Day pranks. Fiercely independent, she loved embarking on adventures, some of which included trips to the Middle East, Europe and Russia. With farming roots in northcentral Missouri, she visited often and made tape recordings of family members. She relished encouraging creativity, reading and writing letters.
Connie had to have someone to look after perpetually—whether relative, pet or new friend—and stood for honesty, compassion regardless of race, creed or religion and love of family over material wealth. Among her many adages, she was often heard to quip, “You’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.”
Connie Jean Felt was born on the morning of September 29, 1940, at her parent’s home in Salem, Missouri, the daughter of Dr. Charles Woodrow Felt, a dentist who served during the Second World War, and Hattie Gertrude “Trudy” Lineberry, both of Mendon, Missouri. Her father’s family descend from the Felts of England; her mother’s from Northern Germany and Puritan John Winthrop of Massachusetts.
Connie was baptized a Methodist and for a short time joined Asbury Church, Prairie Village, Kansas, where she christened her children. Most of her life though, she enjoyed exploring facets of multiple spiritual traditions. This entailed trips to Iowa—where she took her family to see the founder of Transcendental Meditation in 1975—and to ashrams in India in the 2000s.
Her dream for a sibling came true in 1947 when her brother joined the family. Family pets included cats, dogs, turkeys, turtles and squirrels. She loved playing hooky from school with her father who took her target shooting and fishing. At a young age, Connie loved helping a neighborhood blind woman. “At Christmas time we had a family project of helping someone in need,” wrote her mother. “We'd pack a big box of food and toys and anonymously deliver it.” This quality carried Connie through life—from bringing her children to play music for the residents of the care center in which her grandmother resided to advocating for the underprivileged or looking after relatives later in life.
Connie graduated Salem High School in 1958, the year following her father’s tragic death in an automobile accident. Her motto was “To live each day as if it were the last,” according to her senior yearbook. She enjoyed Dusty Miller sundaes and root beer floats and was a member of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. She played alto saxophone in the band and enjoyed speaking of The Dillards, local brothers who formed a nationally-known bluegrass band.
At graduation, her grandparents C. A. and Bernah Felt, of Mendon, bought her a two-tone subcompact Metropolitan, which she loved to drive. Her mother and brother moved to Kansas City that year, and Jeanie, as she known affectionately, left for William Woods, a private two-year women’s college from which she graduated.
Connie then earned a dental hygiene certificate from the University of Kansas City, Missouri, and worked as an assistant to a dental college classmate of her father’s. At age 21, she hoped to move to Hawaii to work.
Instead, that year she met William G. Carolan at a youth group at the Country Club Methodist Church on Wornall Road, where their parents were members. He was born in Philadelphia, the son of Walter C. Carolan and the late Verna M. Rose, of Kansas City. He was a recent graduate of the University of Kansas School of Engineering. The couple married December 1, 1961, at the same church and honeymooned in O’ahu, Hawaii. The marriage produced five children, born across six years.
In 1968, they moved from Overland Park, Kansas, to the Country Club District of Kansas City. The family loved visiting a vacation property in the Ozarks, for fishing and canoeing, and took camping trips to central Colorado. Connie’s mother and younger cousin Annie helped with the children.
One memorable event each year on Halloween was when Connie dressed as a “Salem” witch and stood before a bubbling kettle, a performance that drew trick-or-treaters far and wide to the Carolan home on West 57th Street. It was later discovered that Connie’s paternal ancestors were key figures in the actual witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.
Connie’s first marriage ended in divorce in 1977 though Connie stayed near her children. She then married Said Amireh, of Kansas City, who was Palestinian. She managed an apartment building known today as Hemingway Heights, and by 1980, moved to Knob Noster, Missouri, where she purchased Mobile Manor and opened a sales office and convenience market.
After a decade, she divorced her second husband but kept his name. She soon joined a portrait studio as a sales consultant, a job that took her across the United States—a time during which she visited her children and helped with her grandchildren. In 2000, Connie’s mother became ill and she moved to Sun City, Arizona, to care for her until her death the following year. After the sudden death of her daughter Melanie in 2003, she helped raise her two grandchildren for a time, offering them a safe harbor built from her own resilience.
Connie enjoyed exploring natural medicine, time with her dog, hosting family and visiting Arizona sites, including the Grand Canyon and an artesian well outside Sedona where she collected drinking water. Looking after her aunts in Sun City gave her purpose as did caring for her brother until his death in 2016. Three years later, she moved to Kansas City to live with her son. She transitioned into assisted living and memory care in 2022.
In the last weeks of her life, her four children, several grandchildren and relatives celebrated her 86th birthday and were at her bedside around-the-clock. It was said, like the Dos Equis advertisement, that she could have been known as “the most interesting woman in the world.”
She leaves her children and their spouses: Nancy Carolan (Ken Murphy), Tijuana, Mexico; Michael Carolan (Ruth), Dwight, Belchertown, MA; Melissa Gouffray (Nicolas), Alexandria, VA; and Kent Carolan, Kansas City, MO.
Also her grandchildren Natalie Murphy, La Jolla, CA; Wyatt Murphy, Englewood, CO; Liam Carolan, Brooklyn, NY; Hattie Carolan, Saratoga, WY; Julian Gouffray, Alexandria, VA; Mia Gouffray, Brooklyn, NY; Sophie Van Dyke (Mac McComb), Marshall, CA; Jacob Carolan and Jessica Carolan (Eli Guzmán), both of Parkville, MO; 12 first cousins; and a former sister-in-law and dear friend, Jayne Carolan, of Kansas City. A celebration of life will be held at Chapel Bluff in Camden County, Missouri.
