UW lecturer Carol Salomon remembered as caring teacher

Carol Salomon and her husband, Richard, loved traveling the world together.

Language teachers at the University of Washington, they spent one day together in Japan this past December, when Mrs. Salomon was on her way to Bangladesh and Richard was coming home from Japan.

It was their last time together abroad. Mrs. Salomon, 60, died Friday after being struck by a car on her bicycle ride to work Wednesday morning.

She is survived by her husband and their grown son, Jesse Salomon.

Although she missed her native New York City, Mrs. Salomon loved Seattle. "We often talked about where we should spend our life, but we decided to stay here," her husband said.

She was born Carol Goldberg on July 28, 1948, in New York City. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from City College of New York in 1970, the same year she and Richard were married. Both earned Ph.D.s from the University of Pennsylvania — she in Bengali and he in Sanskrit.

They moved to Seattle in 1978, and he began a professorship at the University of Washington. For a couple of years they lived abroad — mostly in India — then returned to Seattle.

In 1983, Mrs. Salomon began teaching in the UW's Department of Asian Languages and Literature, where she was a senior lecturer.

"Carol had a deep, deep passion for the languages, people and culture of the Bengal region," said Michael Shapiro, chairman of the Asian Languages and Literature department and a friend of the Salomons for 30 years. "She is one of the few people in the U.S. with a Ph.D. in Bengali, which is one of the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world."

Last year, Mrs. Salomon won a large, competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop online materials to teach Bengali, which is spoken by about 200 million, mostly in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.

"Unfortunately, it will have to be completed without her," said Priti Ramamurthy, chair of the South Asia Program at UW, who said Mrs. Salomon was a committed scholar and a caring teacher.

"My last conversation with her was about a student," Ramamurthy recalled. "I mentioned how the student thought she was absolutely wonderful, and the student had been struggling in my class. Carol explained to me that the student has taken a lot of responsibility for her own family, and this is probably one of the reasons she needed support. It demonstrates what a caring and careful teacher Carol was."

Mrs. Salomon especially loved and translated the musical poems of Lalan Fakir, a mystic born in the Bengal region in the 1700s whose songs helped popularize the Baul tradition.

Bauls are known for holding women in high esteem, she wrote in a footnote to a poem that begins, "I have not seen her even once — /my neighbor/who lives in the city of mirrors/near my house."

A private service was scheduled for today.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com