YOUNGSTOWN Mom whose son was slain earns degree in social work
A mother mourned her son's death and persevered to earn a college degree.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Enrolling in college when you're 42 with children at home is hard enough.
Doing it while grieving the death of your son is almost impossible.
But that's what Carolyn Faucette of Youngstown did.
Faucette, now 48, a 1971 graduate of South High School, received a bachelor's degree in social work at Youngstown State University's fall commencement Sunday.
An enforcement specialist with the Mahoning County Child Support Enforcement Agency, Faucette said she enrolled at YSU in 1996 after being passed over several times for promotion.
Tragedy strikes: In December 1997, her 20-year-old son, Fredric, was murdered on the city's South Side.
"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," his mother says.
"I buried my son, and I went right back to school," she added. "It was terribly, terribly difficult."
She said she's still not sure how she went on.
"It was nothing but sheer determination," said Faucette, who has two other sons, ages 25 and 14.
"There were those who said I couldn't do it and wouldn't do it, but I managed to get the strength somehow."
Faucette said her son's death inspired her to focus on social work as a major.
"The death of my son motivated me to find out why homicide is taking the lives of so many black males today," she said.
"Some reasons for those deaths include racial profiling, social-economic injustice and injustice in the criminal justice system."
A major hurdle: "Managing time was one of the hardest parts of going to school," she added. "I had to realize that it was OK for my children to eat a TV dinner and for the house to be a little messy."
She now plans to pursue a master's degree.
"It is important to me to continue my education and do the best with it," she said.
Faucette is a member of the Cultural Initiative Committee, the National Association of Social Workers and the Ladies Auxiliary of VFW Post 6488, and serves on the Mayor's Task Force on Violence and Crime.