Carol Hupping Fisher, groundbreaking book editor, trailblazer, wife, mother & grandmother Curious and optimistic, Carol once said to her family: "Take time to savor the moment. Don’t sacrifice the present for regrets about the past or worries about the future." Carol Hupping Fisher, 74, of Collingswood, was a lifelong wordsmith who broke glass ceilings in editing and publishing. She grew up in New York and studied English at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. Carol started her career at Rodale Press in 1971, where after seven years out of college, she became the first female and youngest vice president of publishing in 1978. She left Rodale in 1988 after nearly two decades and later served as publishing director, managing editor, and chief operating officer for the Philadelphia-based Jewish Publication Society from 1999 until her retirement in 2016. She died Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023 after battling glioblastoma for 7 years at her home. Carol edited many magazines and more than 50 books at Rodale, including 1973′s Stocking Up, a guide to food preservation that sold more than two million copies, and 1974′s Producing Your Own Power, a precursor to today’s sustainability publications. She worked as an executive editor at Peterson Press for a few years in the 1990s and helped expand its catalog from mostly reference material to include books about work, home, and family. She told The Inquirer in 1994 that the challenge in book publishing is to stay relevant. After all, she said, it takes at least a year to edit and publish many books. “Unlike most businesses,” she said, “we don’t have a 10- or even a five-year plan.” At the Jewish Publication Society, Mrs. Fisher oversaw the release of more than 100 books. She worked with acclaimed Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow on 1999′s Trees, Earth, and Torah, and edited a celebrated translation of the Torah in Etz Hayim in 2004. “Every book is a learning opportunity,” she told the Jewish Exponent in 2016 as she neared retirement. “It’s been a terrific journey, and I’ve really loved it.” Carol began married life with her first husband, where they built a handmade home on a ten-acre plot of land in the Pennsylvania countryside. They divorced after 10 years. She met Bill Fisher at an energy conference, and they married in 1983. They delivered their son, Haddon and later their daughter, Lauren at a midwifery center. The family lived in Washington at first. Then moved to England for three years to accommodate her husband’s overseas construction management position. While in the London area, Carol translated works to and from American English and British English. Upon the end of their assignment, they fell in love with and relocated to Haddonfield and then down-sized to Collingswood. “Carol was always ready for an adventure,” her husband said. Raised as a Protestant, she converted to Judaism in the late 1990s. She was an active member of M’kor Shalom Synagogue, now Kol Ami, in Cherry Hill. She cofounded the Spice Up Your Judaism educational program at the synagogue, was a member of its board, and chaired the social action committee, among other responsibilities. She embraced religious and spiritual studies, and explored the Me’ah educational program and Mussar ethical practices movement. She championed sustainable energy practices and organic gardening, and was a board member and birth control counselor for Planned Parenthood in Allentown. “She was a force of nature,” said her husband, Bill. “A born leader and communicator, she touched so many people.” Carol Anne Hupping was born Feb. 17, 1949, in Brooklyn and grew up in Merrick on Long Island. She was drawn to words and language as a young woman, and graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown with a bachelor’s degree in English. Her favorite authors were P.D. James, John Updike, and Philip Roth. Carol loved all things about nature and gardening. She and Bill hiked trails across the U.S., Europe and, New Zealand, and elsewhere around the world. She made borscht and mushroom barley soups from her garden vegetables, and did yoga with her husband of 40 years. She liked to read books and poems to her children, and she edited their school reports with professional enthusiasm. Climate stability and women’s rights were important to her. She selflessly shared her recent health struggles with others in similar situations and left a touching ethical will for her husband and children. “Try to do something every day that makes a difference,” she said in her will. “She was critical and truthful, and held others to high standards,” her daughter, Lauren said. “But those high standards came from commitment and love, and they were high standards of personal integrity. “Mom touched everyone she met with her heart and her love,” her son, Haddon recollected. In addition to her husband and children, Mrs. Fisher is survived by four grandchildren- Ella, Elijah, Ivy and Lev; two sisters- Elaine and Joyce, and other relatives. True to her nature, Carol insisted on a green burial and chose to be interred at Nature’s Sanctuary in Bala Cynwyd, PA which strives for a carbon neutral footprint.