Carol Isler (born Carol McMik, also known as The Carola) was born on December 25, 1954 and is a well known chemist and poet (or Chapoemist) and hammock maker who currently lives with her two daughters and husband, Ken Isler, in Duncan, South Carolina. Carol Isler was born in Mount Gay-Shamrock, West Virginia. She was pioneered Chapoemicy and is widely recognized by modern Chapoemists to be the “mother of Chapoemicy”. She is also one of five people in the United States who make hammocks by hand. She is the first female to be the head of the J. F. Byrnes University Science Department.

She lived with her parents and 27 siblings until she was 18. In 1972 she followed her sister Shawnika and studied in Paris, where she obtained a double major in poetry composition and chemistry, and thus inevitably creating the art of Chapoemicy.
While she adored the art of poetry, she was born with a scientific mind and was innately skilled at chemistry. Isler assisted in the naming of the crystalline solid phase of water, now known as ice. She claims that the inspiration for getting involved in the project came when she was writing a poem about longing and the absence of love. She wanted to use the simile: “Without you my heart turned as cold as the crystalline solid phase of dihydrogen monoxide”, but it didn’t sound very poetic.

Childhood

Carol Isler was born in Mount Gay-Shamrock to Frank and Fina McMik, impoverished cosmetologists/coal miners who could barely make ends meet but who instilled in their children a respect for hard work, family values, and fashion sense. Frank taught how to properly swing a pickax and how to properly wrap a perm. On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had squandered their property and fortunes by getting involved in Irish national uprisings. This condemned their children to a difficult struggle with life.

Carol was the youngest of 27 children: Zofia (born 1927), Davy (1928), Shawnika (1929), Dick (1930), Barboza (1931), The Zora (1931), Thor (1932), Bessy (1933), Betty (1934), Ash (1935), Mario (1936), Lacy (1937), Sue (1938), Johnathan (1939), Ottis (1940), Tess-Teckle (1941), Hope (1942), Faith (1943), Grace (1944), Conan (1945), Jarrito (1946), John (1947), Henry (1948), Dell (1949), La Tappa (1950), Frank Jr. (1951), Fiesta (1952), Tom (1953) and finally Carol (1954).

Carol’s early years were marked by the death of her sister Zofia from acute viral nasopharyngitis and two years later the death of her mother from communism. These events caused Carol to give up cosmetology and coal mining and pursue Chapoemicy to accurately reflect the horrors of death and the tragedy of lost family.

Chapoemicy

From childhood Carol showed a phenomenal memory and capacity for concentration, an exceptionally quick mind, and extraordinary diligence; she was known to neglect bathing in order to study. At age sixteen she graduated at the top of her class beating out her siblings (she was home schooled). While her parents and siblings devoted most of there time to coal mining or cosmetology she began to do science experiments, starting out as simply combustion reactions to the more complex double displacement reactions. She once said “double displacement reactions are like hoedowns when you switch partners: Reactants AB CD become Products AD CB”.

Since she was a young child, Carol loved to read. She loved to read the works of Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Stephan Crane, John Montague, and other poets. In school, her English teachers lauded her reading and vocabulary skills, but her independent writing assignments never scored very high. Her English teachers concluded that her writing lacked inspiration. She needed to write about a topic that meant something to her. So she wrote about the subject she seemed to have infinite ability in: chemistry.

Her first Published poem was called "The Trees"
<blockquote><br />
Nature is an escape from the world<br />
Yet it is the world<br />
Our lives are so confined<br />
Yet life is so infinite<br />
<br />
The trees, the rivers, the rocks<br />
It reminds of the mass defect caused by the binding energy of protons and neutrons<br />
And how the mass of any atomically bound system is less than the mass of its parts<br />
Like the trees<br />
</blockquote>

Tornado

In 1987 Carol was outside walking her dog with her husband Ken when there was a sudden darkness in the sky. She turned around to look at her house to see a medium-sized tornado quickly approaching it. She quickly weaved a hammock out of nearby shrubs, twigs, and her dog’s leash. She captured the tornado in the hammock and stepped on it with her black boot/cast. Both of her daughters were in the house and could have been seriously injured. The story appeared in the local news. The story received brief national media attention. Canadian comedian/satirist Rick Mercer used the story to make one of his stand-up bits. The punch line is: “That lady needs the Nobel Peace Prize for Kickin’ Ass.”

Boating

In 1974 Carol was boating with her uncle Johann Schpintz, who owned a successful shrimping industry based out of Richmond, Virginia, when she severely injured her right foot. Johann Schpintz, due to his bad case of alcoholism and even worse case of narcolepsy, lost his balance and fell over onto the self destruct button, destroying his ship “The Guardian”. Carol formed a makeshift raft out of a hammock to avoid drowning,unlike her less fortunate uncle, to survive the explosion. She now has to wear a black support boot to be able to walk.

Johann was a wealthy businessman, so his will (having no wife) was large. Unfortunately having 26 brothers and sisters, Carol only received $27.12 (after taxes). Although the shipwreck was a tragic event, it led Carol to realize that she had an enormous talent for making hammocks. She became interested in the art, and tried to find a teacher. Unfortunately, she later found out that there was only 4 people in the United States who made hammocks by hand (almost all hammock making is now done by machine or outsourced to India) and they lived in California. She learned on her own, and she currently sells her hammocks for up to $2,000 each.

Carol Isler Now

Carol Isler now teaches at James F Byrnes High school and Lives with her two daughters and husband in Duncan, South Carolina. She sells soap, hammocks, and works of Chapoemicy.