During the 10 years that she fought the loneliest of all battles, Carol Hatton coped by devoting herself almost entirely to others.

She was just a month past her 60th birthday and only weeks into a new role as a first-time grandmother when she died Aug. 22 of breast cancer. It is a disease she fought ferociously, not only for herself but for everybody else.

Hatton will be remembered on the Peninsula as the most significant force behind an initiative that raised $2.5 million in about two years for the new, state-of-the-art Breast Care Center at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.

Friends insist that nobody could inspire people to write a check for a good cause as effectively as Hatton, whose passion and enthusiasm were contagious.

"She was just so sensitive to people's interest in the betterment of the community, and she knew exactly what it took to reach out to people who could afford to support our needs at the Breast Care Center," said Dr. Susan Roux, medical director of the center. "People didn't write checks out of obligation after they talked to Carol. She made it something you wanted to do."

Those gifts also proved invaluable at All Saints' Episcopal Day School and Santa Catalina School. Hatton worked as development director at both schools before coming to the Community Hospital Foundation.

She also worked as a speech therapist for children, and remained dedicated to the cause of children's health and education through her life.

"In

all of my years with Carol, I never once heard her say that something couldn't be done," said Jan Dunn, coordinator of the Breast Care Center. "Her level of commitment and her enthusiasm (were) infectious. She looked beyond herself in everything she did."

Her last day at work with the foundation was Aug. 13 — just nine days before she died. Al Alvarez, director of development for the foundation, said she took a temporary leave of absence to adjust to some new medications that were taking a toll on her.

'Absolutely radiant'

"Until that date, she not only was at work, she was hard at work," he said. "She was making sure there would be no slip-ups during the six or eight weeks she planned to be away, and that everybody would be completely up to speed in her absence. She was a remarkably strong person."

Joan Wellington, Hatton's best friend, said she was her usual, vibrant self, and looked "absolutely radiant" when she attended an engagement party for Wellington's son seven days before she died.

"She was very much her ebullient self — warm, loving, sharing in everybody else's happiness, which was always her thing," Wellington said. "And then, a week later, it was over. None of us saw it coming."

Nor did Hatton. Friends say she was typically cheerful and optimistic to the end, and never allowed herself to sink into complaint. She'd had a good ride, she told people.

"A lot of women who were diagnosed around the same time I was aren't around anymore. I feel lucky," she once told Wellington.

'Role model'

Darryle Pollack was diagnosed with an aggressive case of breast cancer 14 years ago — four years before Hatton — shortly after moving to Carmel with her new husband. She said she knew almost no one, had no support group and was in the throes of depression when she walked into Hatton's office at All Saints' Day School, where Pollack's son had recently started classes.

"I said, 'You probably don't even remember me, but I met you the other night at a dinner,'" Pollack recalled. "I told her, 'I've been diagnosed with breast cancer, I just started chemo, I don't know anybody here and I'm feeling terrible and desperately lonely. Would you be my friend?'"

Pollack said Hatton stood up, came from behind the desk, locked her in an embrace and said, "Not only will I be your friend, but my friend Joan (Wellington) will be your friend, too."

Six hours later, when Pollack returned to school to pick up her son, Hatton and Wellington were standing outside waiting for her. She said they basically adopted her, supporting her through treatments until, against steep odds, her cancer was vanquished.

Four years after Pollack went into remission, Hatton was diagnosed.

"We all thought I would be the one in those shoes, but now it was Carol," she said. "And not once did I ever feel anything but love and support from her, even though she was now the one with breast cancer and mine was gone. She taught me so much about character and fortitude."

Friend and fundraising colleague Suzanne Lehr, who was diagnosed with breast cancer about the same time, said Hatton never complained about her own battle with the disease.

"She didn't share her personal suffering, even with her closest friends," Lehr said. "Carol was such an inspiration to us, such a role model, in that she never, ever felt sorry for herself. She'll forever live in our hearts for her dignity and her courage."

Throughout her own struggle, Hatton went out of her way to contact anyone — including complete strangers — who had been diagnosed with cancer. She offered support, counsel, friendship, advice, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly and experienced ear and a sense of humor.

'Always the ringleader'

"Her sense of humor was her No. 1 characteristic. It was mischievous, almost impish. She was never one to pass up a good joke, unless it was at somebody else's expense," Alvarez said.

Wellington recalled the day Hatton and some female friends went to Pebble Beach for lunch, and, because of remodeling, had to be shuttled from their cars rather than driving to the parking lot at The Beach Club.

"When we came out, we waited and waited, but there was no shuttle," Wellington said. "So Carol, always the ringleader, spots a parked shuttle with keys in the ignition, yells 'Hop in, girls!' starts the engine and drives us all back to our cars."

'Lights of her life'

Most important, friends said, was her family: daughters Lindsay Hatton McClelland, a financial analyst and writer in Cambridge, Mass., and Brynn Hatton, who is working on a Ph.D. in modern art history at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.; her husband of 37 years, David Hatton, a dentist who was her high school sweetheart; and her newborn granddaughter, Hazel, Lindsay's first child. She glowed like a Christmas tree whenever she talked about any of them.

"They were the lights of her life," said Wellington, a physical therapist who at one time taught baby-fitness classes alongside Hatton. "My daughter, Paige, was born six weeks before Lindsay, so she always called me Mother One, and I called her Mother Two.

"And for a very short time, she was Grandmother Two."

Memorial contributions in Hatton's honor may be made to George Mark Children's House, her favorite charity, at www.georgemark.org. More information about Community Hospital's Breast Care Center can be found at www.chomp.org.

Dennis Taylor can be reached at dtaylor@montereyherald.com or 646-4344.