Caryl was a native of Plainview, Nebraska born January 4, 1940, the only child of Everyln Arlene (Reimers) Craven and Joseph Howard Craven. She grew up spending a great deal of time in their grocery store, the Family Food Center. This is where she developed her love of uncooked hotdogs, a favorite after school snack. Plainview is also where she started (and ended) her roller-skating career, waylaid by chickenpox before the big show, never to wear the cute red sparkly dress that had been made for her debut. This was a lifelong regret.
She graduated from Plainview high school in 1958 and moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. There, she joined Alpha Xi Delta fraternity, which turned out to be a greater passion than hot dogs and success than roller skating. She was dedicated to and served Alpha Xi and Rho Chapter for more than 50 years, eventually becoming the second historian in Rho’s history and carrying on that duty for decades. She received the records on hundreds of alphabetized index cards, eventually digitizing the records on her own. Generations of women remember her as an amazing woman and for humor, kindness, positivity, and laughter.
Alpha Xi also led Caryl to meet a cute young man—Ross Greathouse—at a Monday night dinner exchange. They began dating soon after. Having lost the “dear,” somewhere along the way, she became Caryl Craven Greathouse on July 30, 1962, a couple of months after graduating from UNL with a degree in home economics education. She once described their marriage as letting them do “more together than either of us could have done alone. A relationship like no other.” After the wedding, Caryl and Ross moved to Valley, Nebraska, where she taught home economics at Valley High School for one year. They moved back to Lincoln in 1963, where she worked at Gold and Company, a department store, as a buyer-trainee, managing the infant and toddler clothing and children’s furniture departments. In 1965, they purchased the family home where they would live, and raise their family, for the next 20-plus years.
In case it escaped notice, organization and structure were Caryl’s thing. She was a force to be reckoned with and in charge until the day she died. When they opened the family business—Greathouse Associates—in 1969, Ross found the clients and did the design work. Caryl did everything else. By this time, she had figured out that she was not enthusiastic about home economics. So she composed the life she wanted, surrounded by family and arranging everything she touched. Her greatest compositions include her 63+ year marriage, children, and dedication to the Catholic Church.
Her organization and creativity impacted everything she encountered: Ross, Jay, Leslie, Blessed Sacrament’s elementary CCD and “Happy Days” programs, Rho Chapter’s Housing Corporation, Nebraska football Saturdays, ski trips, family road trips, a homeowners association, family reunions, and her various clubs, including book, bridge and RAK (Random Acts of Kindness). She prodigiously volunteered with the Lincoln Junior League, LJL Sustainers, Nebraska Literary Heritage Association, and various track and trails fundraisers, among others. As her children grew older, she obtained a UNL Master’s Degree and taught fashion merchandising at Southeast Community College. She opened her own business near Gateway Mall called “The Phone Source.” Through all of this, she continued to run the business side of Greathouse Associates.
Caryl is preceded in death by her parents, great-granddaughter, Cambridge Armstrong, and brother and sister-in-law Richard and Happy Greathouse. She is survived by her husband Ross, her children, Leslie (Kyle), and Jay (Lea), her six grandchildren, Mackenzie, Caitlin, Isabella, Cale, Reece, and Harrison, great-grandson, Bennett Ross, and extended family too numerous to count.
All who knew her will miss this dear, smart, funny, and rather proper, wife, mom, Nana, cousin, aunt, and friend.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Monday, January 19, 2026, at 10:30 AM, Roper and Sons South Lincoln Chapel, 3950 Hohensee Drive.