Carolyn Cannon Litke

A celebration of life service for Carolyn Cannon Litke, who died in Fort Worth, Texas on April 17, 2025, will be held at Northwest Square (the former Trinity Methodist Church building) in DeLand, Florida on May 16, 2025 at 11:00 AM with Reverand Mary Beth Harper presiding. The family will receive friends on Thursday, May 15, 2025 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM at Lankford Funeral Home.

Carolyn was born on March 13, 1940 in the old DeLand Memorial Hospital to parents John Thomas and Gladys Brown Cannon. She was a 1958 graduate of DeLand High School and served as drum major in the DeLand Band. She obtained her B.A. in 1962 from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where she majored in Elementary Education and became a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority.

In 1963, while serving as a first grade teacher at Dempsie Brewster Elementary School in DeLand, Carolyn met Walter Litke, who was in his first year as the PE coach of the school. The two fell in love and were married on August 1, 1964. They would ultimately be married for 52 years before Walt passed in 2016.

Carolyn always wanted to be a teacher. She taught at the elementary level for 30 years, with positions at schools in Lexington, Kentucky, DeLand, West Palm Beach and Lake Helen, Florida. While Carolyn enjoyed her experiences at each of these schools, she developed a special bond and relationship with the students and faculty of M.B. Long Lake Helen Elementary. This was due in part to her long tenure at Lake Helen, but this also speaks to the quality of the faculty at the school, as well as the great students and families that were a part of that community. Her success as an educator was demonstrated by the number of students who recognized and remembered her later in life and expressed their appreciation for the way she touched their lives. She enjoyed meeting with them for a meal and hearing from them at Christmas with pictures of their children enclosed.

Carolyn grew up as a member of First Christian Church in Deland. She and Walt rejoined First Christian upon returning to DeLand in the early 1970’s and remained active members until 2014, when they moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and joined University Christian Church. At First Christian, Carolyn taught Sunday school, served as a Deacon, served on the search committee, was a member and President of the Day School Board, and chaired the committee that planned the 125th anniversary of the church in 2008. Outside of church, Carolyn was a member of Junior Welfare League, the Hyacinth Garden Circle, Delta Delta Delta Alumni Chapter, and PEO (DT Chapter in DeLand and BD Chapter in Fort Worth).

In the initial years following her retirement from teaching in the late 1990’s, Carolyn volunteered at several elementary schools in DeLand and the First Christian Church Day School. In recent years, she took great pleasure in keeping up with the activities and interests of her grandchildren.

Carolyn was preceded in death by her husband, Walter, her parents, John and Gladys Cannon, her sister, Betty Cannon Powers, and brother, John Cannon, III. Carolyn is survived by her son, Stephen Walter Litke, his wife, Jennifer, and their children, Hayden and Karoline of Fort Worth, Texas; her son, Thomas Keith Litke, his wife, Angeanet, and their children, Zoe and Arianna, her husband Andy, and their children, which were Carolyn’s great-grandchildren, Liam and Luca of Columbia, Missouri; and several cousins, nieces and nephews.

Carolyn loved Deland and all of her wonderful friends from different circles of her life, such as childhood, teaching, PEO and church. Although a Floridian by birth, she was also deeply proud of her family’s Kentucky roots. Carolyn loved cooking, music, and rooting on her favorite sports teams, including the Kentucky Wildcats, Boston Red Sox and TCU Horned Frogs. Above all else, Carolyn was a devoted and dearly loved, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, cousin, teacher and friend. She made the world a better place, and she will be deeply missed.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the PEO Foundation and sent to 3700 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 503012, or The Neighborhood Center of West Volusia and sent to 434 South Woodland Blvd., DeLand, Florida 32720.