In memorium

Carolyn Hawthorne Mutz, mother, philanthropist, educator, and wife, died on September 15, 2026. Born in Indianapolis on December 10, 1935, to Marcia and Gilbert Hawthorne, she grew up in a household in which service to others was paramount. In 1958, she married future Lieutenant Governor John Mutz, whom she had met in their high school freshman algebra class.

Carolyn had a wonderful ability to see the potential in people. Toward that end, she helped establish the Dyslexia Institute of Indiana and was one of our “Founding Mothers”. She was told by a professor in college that “there were children who would just never learn how to read.” Fortunately for Indiana, she did not accept this. Having been a teacher, she knew kids were being left behind in school. She sought to learn why kids were not reading, understand how to help them, and worked to create a solution in Indiana where one had not existed before. Carolyn played a key role in the creation and vitality of the Dyslexia Institute of Indiana. She saw the potential in people even when others did not and worked with other like-minded people to help everyone learn how to read. She is a member of an incredibly thoughtful and insightful group of women that we are proud to call our “Founding Mothers”. We work tirelessly to carry on that tradition of enabling all people to reach their full potential, in honor of Carolyn Mutz and all our Founding Mothers.

She was a lifelong supporter of Dyslexia Institute of Indiana, she and her husband John established “The Carolyn and John Mutz Scholarship Fund” through the Central Indiana Community Foundation for Dyslexia Institute of Indiana to help future generations on their journey to literacy.