Roy and Carol Brodersen

Roy Brodersen was born in Chicago in 1941, when his mother was forty-three and his father was fifty-five. Roy had three older sisters and one older brother. Their ancestors were from Germany and Norway. Roy’s father earned a master’s degree, which was unusual at that time, and taught mechanical drawing at Carl Schurz High School

in Chicago as well as night classes. His mother never worked, but she played the

piano for silent movies. When Roy was eleven and his sisters were all married, his parents decided to take Roy and his brother and move to Clearwater, Florida.

A few years later they became homesick for the rest of their family and

moved back to McHenry, Illinois. After high school, Roy went to Northern

Illinois University where he studied history and education.

 

Although Roy doesn’t remember much about his childhood, Carol knows a lot about her early days, because her father wrote a memoir. She was born on November 6, 1943, on the west side of Chicago. Her grandfather was Carl Mangiarulo, but he changed his last name to Mann when he immigrated to the U.S. through Ellis Island in 1905. Since the name change was never made official, Carol is both Carol Mangiarulo and Carol Mann on her birth certificate and marriage license. Carol’s dad worked his entire career at Chicago Screw Company, eventually becoming a personnel director. Her mother always had small jobs to help make ends meet. They worked very hard to provide for Carol and her two younger brothers. When Carol was eight years old, the family moved to Villa Park, Illinois, and Carol remembers her years there as ideal. After graduating from high school, she went to Northern Illinois University where she majored in elementary education

and was a member of the Kappa Delta sorority. She met Roy when she was a

freshman, but they didn’t start dating until senior year. Carol and Roy

got married in 1966, and, according to Carol, that’s when the fun began.

 

Carol taught elementary school in Lombard, Wheaton, and Schaumburg, Illinois. After

seeing many young students light up when they realized they had learned to read,

Carol knew she eventually wanted to be a reading specialist. Roy and Carol had

two sons, and while the boys were young, Carol stayed home with them, sharing

babysitting with a friend so she could teach part time as a substitute teacher.

 

After graduating, Roy taught for four years in Villa Park, Illinois. One of the things he treasures most today is a letter (attached below) that he received after he retired

from one of those sixth-grade students who grew up to become a flight analyst for

Boeing. The student writes that Roy’s creative teaching methods and Roy’s

concern for him personally were reasons that sixth grade was his

defining year and reasons for his later success at Boeing.

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At age twenty-eight, Roy became a principal in Schaumburg, Illinois. He was young

and scared when he showed up for his first day as principal. He came early before

any of the teachers arrived, but forgot to put his car into park as he got out and

starting walking toward the building. He heard a noise and turned to see his car

rolling into a nearby creek. He was able to get a tow truck to pull it out, but

not before two teachers saw it and never let him live it down.

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Roy spent his whole career as an elementary school principal in two different schools

in Schaumburg. He managed large budgets and large groups of staff and headed up

the Title 1 program for the district, but the best part for him was the kids. He managed

to find time to earn two master’s degrees from Northern Illinois University in

curriculum and education management, with Carol typing his papers on a little

portable typewriter. They were living in close-by Bloomingdale, and for two years, Roy was a trustee of the Village of Bloomingdale, a very busy nighttime job that required reading lots of paperwork after his day job as a principal. Carol did volunteer work, including serving as president of the Friends of the Bloomingdale Library. She

realized that volunteer work is very stressful and time consuming, so after

being home for seven years, she decided to go back to teaching full time.

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Carol taught for over thirty years and had a wonderful experience with great friends

and great students. While teaching full time and raising the boys and caring for her parents, she found a way to earn a master’s degree in reading from Northeastern

Illinois University. She wanted to quit many times, but Roy encouraged her to

persevere, and she now considers her master’s degree a great accomplishment.

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Roy and Carol spent lots of time at their sons’ baseball, wrestling, and soccer

events over the years. They enjoyed traveling together as a family around the

country, on Caribbean cruises, and on one special trip to Europe, where

they spent two weeks touring Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland

and France. To add to the experience, the boys were each assigned a job. Brad was

the money man, and Shawn was the map navigator. They helped with planning the itinerary, choosing bed and breakfast locations, and managing the expenses.

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After their sons went off to college, Roy and Carol bought a house on Pleasant Lake

in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Almost every Friday after work, they would drive up and

spend the weekends at the lake house that they owned for thirty years. After retiring

in 1999, Roy and Carol bought a home in the Dunes and moved to Sanibel,

continuing to summer in their Wisconsin lake house until they sold it in 2019.

They both became active golfers, and Roy was, at different times, president, secretary,

and treasurer of the Dunes Men’s Golf Association in Sanibel. Carol was a docent

with the historical museum and worked as a volunteer at Big Arts.

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Roy is an adventurer. He says the two most exciting things he has ever done are scuba diving and skydiving. But the majority of his adventures revolve around ocean sailing

on his brother’s forty-two-foot yacht. One very harrowing experience that Roy and

Carol like to share started with a plan for Roy, his brother, and his brother’s wife to

sail from Maine to Bermuda. Carol is afraid of the water and decided to fly down and meet them when they arrived. The seven-day trip ended up taking thirteen days

because of the horrendous weather with twenty-five-foot swells. The electronic equipment on board failed, and they ended up 200 miles east of Bermuda. Roy was

able to send a message through a sailor on a Russian vessel that they encountered.

It was picked up by a ham radio operator who forwarded it to Carol in Ohio.

“Don’t come. Bad weather.”  But Carol felt she needed to go anyway, so she flew to Bermuda despite her parents’ warnings and anxiously waited for three days without hearing anything about the sailboat. She was at the airport getting ready to return to Ohio when word finally came, and when the sailboat eventually arrived in Bermuda, Roy and the others were starving and bruised from being thrown around in the storm. After that experience, Roy taught himself celestial navigation with a sextant in his back yard.

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Roy and Carol have wonderful memories of sailing to the British Virgin Islands and

Abaco Islands as well as riverboat tours down the Danube. They have taken cruises to Iceland, Greenland, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and through the Panama Canal, and

they have been to Europe several times. One of their most unusual trips was to South Africa. Some friends unexpectedly won an all-expense-paid safari trip at a charity

auction but had no interest in going. They gave the trip to Roy and Carol who

thoroughly enjoyed the extravagant five-star hotels, private limos, and exotic

experiences such as riding an elephant in Kruger National Park.

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When the Brodersens heard about plans for the Enclave, they decided the time

was right to make the move to Shell Point, which they did in December of 2021.

They had no idea the Enclave would also end up being home to several of their

friends from Sanibel. The academy classes, exercise classes, bridge and Samba

games, golf leagues, and volunteering all keep them very busy. They are

happy they chose Shell Point, and they don’t miss the causeway.