Caroline's granddaughter Linnea posted much more detail on March 19th about Caroline's health history, the future of the Folk Legacy music collection, & a possible memorial gathering. Here is what she said:

Update from Caroline's granddaughter Linnea Paton: Caroline Paton passed peacefully on Monday March 18th, 2019 at 3:15 a.m. GEER Nursing Home in Canaan, CT with family by her side.
In the past year she faced many health challenges including severe arthritis in her knees that left her unable to walk, challenges with low salt levels, an infection, and eventually the onset of Alzheimer's. She remained kind, gracious and warm-spirited throughout it all. The outpouring of love she and her family received this past year are a mirror of the love she showed us all.
Over three hundred friends generously contributed to help fund her care in the spring of 2018, which enabled her to receive the care she needed at home-a setting of her choosing up until the point when the arthritis became debilitating and she needed more medical care. I can't thank everyone enough for the generosity. It meant so much to Caroline too. A huge thanks to Sally Rogers and Jacqueline Reizes for helping organize the fundraiser for Caroline.
Family and friends have been visiting Caroline regularly since she moved to GEER Nursing Home in August of 2018. In September, we held a Folk-Legacy Weekend in Sharon, CT at the Silver Lake Conference Center and many of her friends and family from far away were able to see her then; her health had prevented her from going to the Old Songs Folk Festival and the New England Folk Festival Association (NEFFA) festival for the past couple of years. Special thanks to Lynn Feingold and Lori Fassman for helping organize the Folk-Legacy weekend.
It has been a challenging year for Caroline's family as well. In order to qualify for medicaid, everything had to be sold. Caroline's friends and family stepped in to make sure that everything found the best home possible. Her sons Robin and David Paton and David's friends did a tremendous job of clearing out the Folk-Legacy house that had been the Paton's home for over 50 years, hosting hundreds of musicians and friends over the years, and of course, the place of production of thousands of recordings, LPs, cassettes, booklets, and CDs. The house was sold on Friday March 15th to a lovely family who want to restore and preserve the property as it was. Thanks also goes to Bob Zentz, Jeanne McDougall Zentz, and Lee Townsend whose coordinator efforts have preserved the entire Folk-Legacy folklore and folk-music library that long-time Folk-Legacy friend and volunteer Karen L. Kobela worked so hard to index along with hundreds of other artifacts and ephemera. Thanks also go to Duane Degutis who helped Caroline with emails, the website, and creating CDs after Sandy's passing in 2009 and to George Stephens who helped prepare the entire digital catalog so Folk-Legacy could transition from CD to the internet.
In November, Caroline sold Folk-Legacy to the Smithsonian Institution. They will keep the music in print and available in perpetuity. Caroline was thrilled that the music would be able to live on and really felt it was the right thing to do. There are many friends to thank for helping assist with this transition, but I will save that for a separate post. A formal announcement of the acquisition will be made in the spring, once they finish getting all the materials ready for publication again.
Caroline will be missed by so many. Her love wove so many people and communities together.
I am working with Dave, Rob, and Linda on the details for her memorial service. We will be in touch soon with an update.

Linnea