Caroline Killeen

Caroline M. Pettinato Killeen (January 15, 1926 – December 2014)^[1] was an American activist, perennial political candidate, and self-proclaimed nature lobbyist.^[2] She ran as a United States presidential candidate at least five times between 1976 and 2008,^[3] and officially qualified for the ballot in the New Hampshire primary in 2008 as a Democrat^[4][5] She ran for Mayor of Tucson in 1983, receiving 31 votes.^[6]

Early life

Killeen was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania,^[7] and adopted by Peter (or Pietro) Pettinato and Antoinette Pettinato.^[8][9] Both of her parents were born in Italy; Pietro Pettinato ran a grocery store.^[10] She was briefly removed from the Pettinato home in 1934, when police found evidence of abuse.^[11] She sold the Pettinato home in Scranton in 1954, for $10,000.^[12]

Career

Killeen moved to New Mexico in the 1950s, intending to enter a convent. She did not take final vows to become a nun, though she was sometimes later described as a "former nun".^[13] She earned a meager living in Tucson^[14][15] and Florida^[16][17] as an agricultural worker, waitress, a cashier, and a careworker.^[7][18] She also redeemed recycling and sold seeds and stickers to raise money.^[19] She biked across the U.S. several times to raise awareness of environmental and anti-nuclear issues.^[2][20] "When you bicycle, you have time to philosophize," she told an interviewer in 1970. "Our country needs philosophy, it needs more concern about the individual as a whole, not just as a commodity. We have so many machines we begin to act like them."^[21] She rode from Scranton to Florida in 1965,^[22] from Tucson to Detroit in 1970,^[23] and from Florida up the East Coast in 1973.^[24]

In 1976, Killeen rode across the country on her first campaign as a write-in candidate for president. "I had this psychic insight that the country is ready for a woman president," she explained. "It's the Bicentennial year. People are hoping something revolutionary will happen."^[7] She ran for president in 1984,^[25] but also rode to Canada that year, seeking political asylum.^[26][27] In 1987, at the age of 61, she rode a bicycle across America to protest against the arms race between the Soviet Union and United States.^[20] She ran as "the Hemp Lady", advocating marijuana legalization.^[28] Her run for president in 1992 earned her an extended mention in an Australian newspaper article titled "Hopeless Candidates".^[29] In 1996, she ran for president again, riding across the country at age 70, again speaking about the value of hemp as a crop.^[30] She was named "Freedom Fighter of the Month" by High Times magazine in June 1996.^[1]

Personal life

Killeen married Douglas Keffer in Texas in 1979.^[31] She moved to Italy by 2007, and began calling herself "Caroline of Assisi".^[3] She died in Italy in 2014, in her eighties.^[1]