In the summer of 1927, Carpenter's mother, who was ill with tuberculosis, returned to Boulder with him (mountain air was then believed to aid recovery). Her condition deteriorated, and she entered the Mesa Vista Sanatorium in 1930. She recovered sufficiently to become chief medical librarian at Boulder Community Hospital in 1945. His father remained in New York, and he seldom saw him. He found it hard to find work during the Great Depression, but eventually secured a good position at Givaudan. His parents divorced in 1945, and his father remarried.