Carrel Ann Muller

Carrel Ann Muller, born in New Orleans on August 10, 1943, passed away on Wednesday, January 22, 2020. She was the daughter of Ethel Schlesinger Muller and Joseph Albert Muller and the sister of Ethel Muller Jacques and Brenda Muller (all predeceased). She was, on her mother’s side, the granddaughter of Laurence Eugene Schlesinger and Rhea May Nixon and, on her father’s side, of Henry Arthur Muller and Emma Wilhelmina Paulina Walt.
Carrel is survived by her son, Peter Carl Muller; her nieces, Andree Jacques, Janine Jacques Koenig, and Alicia Jacques Schwarzenbach; and numerous other relatives and friends.
   Carrel attended St. Anthony of Padua Grammar School, St. Mary’s Dominican High School, Newcomb College, and the University of New Orleans, from which she obtained a BA in Education (Secondary) and an MA in English. She also did substantial postgraduate work and was Louisiana Certified in English, Social Studies, and Library Science.
For more than thirty years, Carrel worked as a teacher and librarian throughout New Orleans. She taught English at Clifton L. Ganus School, Reading at St. Angela Merici School, English Composition at Delgado Community College, and Writing Children’s Literature at the University of New Orleans; and she was a librarian at Mercy Academy, St. Dominic School, and the Academy of the Sacred Heart. There, for twenty years, she was the beloved head of Sacred Heart’s Lower School Library, where she exercised her gifts as a master storyteller to encourage a lifelong love of books, reading, and learning. Mother Goose Theater, Story Theater, and the resident puppets Rufus the Dog and Mrs. Daffodil the Monkey were well known to generations of happy students, for whom she made the library a magical place.
Carrel was also a writer and a longtime member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). In 2000 she received the SCBWI National Magazine Merit Honor Award in Fiction for her story “Thornbush,” which was published in Cricket. She was the Regional Advisor for the Louisiana/Mississippi Region for over twenty years and was granted the honor of Regional Advisor Emerita in 2011. Carrel was also a regular and highly esteemed presenter at the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as well as numerous other regional and national conferences. Carrel’s publications included both fiction and non-fiction in magazines such as Americana, Highlights, and The Writer Magazine, as well as a variety of illustrated educational activity books, such as Explore Louisiana and The Primate World, which was published by the Audubon Zoo Education Department. Further publications were pending at the time of her passing.   
Funeral services will be held at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, 3368 Esplanade Ave., New Orleans, LA, on Saturday, February 8, 2020. Visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m., and a Funeral Mass celebrated by Fr. Jonathan Hemelt will follow at 12:00 p.m. After the Mass, interment will take place at Greenwood Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, please make donations in her name to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (https://www.scbwi.org/about/donate/) or to the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at The University of Southern Mississippi (https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1149/foundation/index.aspx?sid=1149&gid=1&pgid=1043&cid=2307).

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