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Charlotte Brown Obituary
Charlotte worked at the Portland State University Library as an administrative assistant and as a cataloger until 2002, when she began graduate studies in medical illustration at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. She received a Master's degree in May, 2004.
Charlotte was a gifted artist who painted her subject, the natural world, with sensitivity, accuracy, and humor. She was kind-hearted and often rescued and found homes for stray animals. She loved animals all her life, and was a member of the American Humane Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Nature Conservancy. She was also an enthusiastic walker, hiker, and cyclist.
Charlotte enjoyed classical music, especially chamber music, and was an accomplished amateur musician.
She returned to the Chico area in August. Depressed over several recent events in her life, she ended her life on October 12th.
She is survived by her mother and stepfather, Carol Gardner and George Keithley; her father, Malcolm Brown; her grandmother, Hazel Gardner; her sister and brother-in-law, Lydia Brown and Miguel Estrada; her brother, Duncan Brown; her half-sister, Melissa Neubauer; her stepsisters, Liz and Clare Keithley; her stepbrother and his wife, Chris Keithley and Fiona Renton; her uncles, Bill Gardner and Mike McLaughlin; her aunts, Mandy Gardner and Merrie McLaughlin, and her cousins, Colin and Kate Gardner and Matt and Megan McLaughlin.
No service is planned at this time. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Humane Society, the Chico Cat Coalition, or the Butte County Library in care of Newton-Bracewell Funeral Home.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
Memories and Condolences
for Charlotte Brown
Janet Planet
November 4, 2004
I went for a walk in Bidwell park yesterday. I sang a song for Charlotte. I hardly knew Charlotte. The day I met her I was sitting on Alan's couch. Alan was gone on vacation and I was house sitting and baby sitting his cats Phoebe and Lucy. Phoebe and Lucy were once Charlotte's cats as well since Alan and Charlotte were involved at one point for about six years. They had four cats at that point and when they split up Alan took half and Charlotte the other. As I was sitting on the couch, I suddenly saw a woman with cat toys in her arms looking through the window. I don't think Charlotte thought that anyone was home. Alan's car was gone and I did not have one. She wanted to catch a glimpse of the cats. She was very surprised to see me looking back at her and her eyes became wide and concerned. I went to the front door. She was imbarressed and explained she brought some things for the cats. I indroduced myself and warmly asked her in. I too am a cat lover and have two of my own. I led Charlotte to Lucy where she was curled up. A kind of peacefulness swept over Charlotte's face. We talked about Lucy. Then we spoke of Phoebe who was in the back of the house curled up on top of a huge kitty ladder. Charlotte had brought so many wonderful things for the animals, real kitty grass to eat, kitty treats, kitty scratcher etc. I think she appreciated my love of animals as well. We immediately hit it off on our common ground. I was surprised how comfotable I felt with Charlotte from the moment I met her. I am a bit shy but with her I felt a warmth that made me feel good inside. Her face was so kind. She was very fair and pretty. She also appeared modest and was not concerned that the world regonize her beauty. She was not shallow. This was the one and only time I ever met her and yet I will never forgett.
I sang a song to Charlotte yesterday as I was walking in Bidwell park. There was a owl hooting and a tree of brilliant red. The air was clean and misty, the sky grey but pretty. It was near sunset. The world will miss you Charlotte, and your kindness...
Janet Planet
Margie Lee
October 26, 2004
Ode to Charlotte:
We met in Portland in 1993. My husband was in Kinkos and noticed an attractive young woman with drawings of animals she was copying for art cards. He started a conversation with her, telling her that I was also an artist and did animal cards as well. When he found out she worked at PSU (she at the library, I at the bookstore) he suggested she stop by my office and show me the cards and discuss how to market our cards. A few days later I remember a tall, slender woman standing in front of my desk saying she was Charlotte Brown and she’d met Bob and had some cards to show me. I showed her my cards and we became instant friends. We were both relatively new to Portland.
She was working on a second bachelors in art at PSU which took many years taking one course at a time while working at the PSU library. I admired her steadfastness and her work ethic. Her art was different than mine but we appreciated each other.
I think we enjoyed each others quirky independent personalities. When her sister Lydia moved to Portland a year or so later and married Miguel and we all become good friends. We did got together though for our "Potlatches" or potlucks and she was always great company and we had so many laughs. It was Charlotte who was the main person that got us all together.
After she got her art degree Charlotte told me she was interested in graphic design because she could make a living at it. She narrowed it down to medical illustration because of her great love for wildlife and nature. She applied to all the schools and chose Augusta Georgia.
We visited Charlotte in Augusta last Thanksgiving. I was amazed how hard she was working. She told me she'd be at school at seven in the morning and not leave until eight at night when she would bicycle home. Weekends too. I think she was driven to perfection. I visited her office in Augusta and sat with her at her computer station. She showed me her graphic programs including three D and her work in that program explaining how difficult it was. She seemed totally involved in her work and proud of it. We looked at some of her class work that was in a file cabinent.
She talked about how she didn't fit in with the grad school social scene in Augusta because the students were so much younger and very right wing. She’d gone to a barbeque and they’d all talked about Bush and the war with real enthusiasm. Charlotte loved Ralph Nader and what he stood for, though she was Kerry all the way this time (2004) because she hated Bush. We shared a love of art, animals (cats especially) and liberal politics.
She and Matt shared a lovely little house in a wooded neighborhood. They had a large backyard and enjoyed the nature in the south. They were able to go to the coast and I know they shared some wonderful times. Charlotte showed me Boot’s room and he was asleep in his condo. Charlotte said he was blind now but that they took him outdoors and guided him around the yard which he loved.
Boots died a little more than a week before Charlotte. Boots was her loyal companion for some 17 years. I’m sure that there wasn’t a morning she didn’t wake up and immediately nuzzle her little furry friend and an evening when she didn’t check on him before she herself went to bed.
But it was her personality that I will miss. She just made me feel really good about myself. I think she thought of others more than anyone I've ever known.
On October 10th, I received a call from Lydia saying Charlotte had left her mom’s house in Chico very upset and they were worried about her. She thought she might come to Portland and told me to watch for her and let her know as soon as I heard from her.
I looked for Charlotte. I walked the park Blocks through PSU, eyeing the Library where she first worked, Smith Center where she later moved, and Neuberger Hall where she took her art classes, the bird feeder beside the building she used to fill with seeds and nuts. I looked at the cafeteria where we’d share tea or coffee so many times. I looked at the yellow leaves on the Elm trees, the moistened pavement. I looked for Charlotte but she did not come.
Depression is an illness with effects sometimes as devastating as any other. As Lydia wrote, “I'm sure you didn’t mean to leave us this early.”
Charlotte was a gift for eleven years and I will remember her always.
Terry Ann Rohe
October 25, 2004
Charlotte worked for the Portland State University Library from May 1993 till November, 2002. I worked with Charlotte for about eight years.
She was respected and loved by her co-workers, for whom she always had a smile and a friendly greeting. She was a very gifted artist who had a natural talent that she enhanced with her studies. While at PSU she took studio classes and kept her portfolios at work. I was impressed by how hard she worked to become such a fine painter and artist.
I remember her soft voice and her wide smile. She will be missed by everyone who knew her here at the library.
We have put a book into our collection in her memory. The book is entitled Primal Images: 100 Lumen Prints of Amazonia Flora. This is a very beautiful book of lumen prints with lovely color plates that I think Charlotte would have liked very much. The bookplate will read: In Memory of Charlotte Elizabeth Brown; 1960 – 2004; Artist; Library Technician II, Branford Price Millar Library; 1993-2002.
Alicia Sharp
October 25, 2004
Charolotte was a very kind and thoughtful person. We worked together at Enloe Lab years ago and we would talk and joke to keep our spirits up while we worked at enloe. I told her she will go places, then I saw her at the library. I thought she really enjoyed working at the Butte County Library but I guess it was not enough. She really enjoyed working with books instead of patients being sick and all. I just want to say she will be missed and I am sorry I did not keep in touch with her. She has a special spot in my heart. Goodbye Charlotte.
Robert M. May
October 25, 2004
We bow our heads in reverence and ask God to shine His Face upon the soul of our friend Charlotte that she may live in eternity in perfect peace with God! May we remember the beauty of her soul throughout our lives. She was a light who lived too shortly upon this earth and left her friends too soon. We will remember you Charlotte as one who gave us light! You are now with God, the Eternal Light. We will not forget you Charlotte, our friend.
Eileen
October 22, 2004
I am so sorry for your loss. Charlotte was a beautiful person.
Susan Jackson
October 18, 2004
I will send a contribution to the Humane Society in Charlotte's name.
Charlotte and my cat, Kaly
Teresa Stapelberg
October 18, 2004
My very good friend and former co-worker, Charlotte Brown, died a week ago and what makes it hard is that she took her own life. She had just graduated this summer with a Masters in Medical Illustration in Georgia and had broken up with her long time boyfriend. She had come to Portland at the end of June, beginning of July to visit and we spent a lot of time together. She rented a car while she was here and took me up to the coast and we watched fireworks on the 4th of July. She was the nicest person you'd want to meet and would bend over backwards to do things for people. In her E-mail letters to me, over the course of her Masters program, she expressed a desire to return to Portland and to PSU. A lot of people thought she was crazy since she was spending her time and money going to graduate school, but me? I wanted her to come back to Portland. She was like a sister to me and I felt she was my one true friend.
She was working in the Library Administration when I first started working at PSU in 1995 so I hardly saw her, but when I did see her, I felt a connection. She left that job but soon returned to PSU in 1997 as a Library Tech in the Cataloging department. It was then that I realized just how much we had in common. I was with my boyfriend Matt at the time and found out she had a boyfriend named Matt, too. We both were never married and had no children. We both were around same age. We both had two cats. When I started at PSU, my boss at the time, Mr. Tamblyn, kept calling me 'Charlotte' and I didn't find out until later that he got us both confused. He called Charlotte 'Teresa' all the time. It's not that we looked alike. We didn't really. I do think our spiritual aura or energy was similar. We also tended to hang around each other a lot. Another co-worker kept calling us Frick and Frack because wherever Frick was, Frack was never too far away.
Over the next five years, until she went to graduate school in 2002, Charlotte and I shared a lot of fun times. I hate to admit, but we did more talking then working most days. She helped me cope when I was evicted from my apartment and when my cat, Alex, died. In fact, her cat, Harvey, had just died a month or so before, so we both helped each other through those difficult times. Charlotte loved animals so much and was a vegan. She was strange, some would say, since she had no problem watching a human cadaver dissected but couldn't stomach the use of a baby pig used in her lab class. But that was Charlotte. When she graduated from Georgia Medical School this year, I was dismayed that she decided to return to Chico, CA instead of Portland. She was going to live with her Grandma until she could find a job. There was a potential job opening in the Cataloging Department at PSU but, as usual, the State was dragging their feet about opening it up. The last E-mail I got from Charlotte was on the 22 of September. She was upset that she couldn't find work and her cat, Boots, was near death. He had a lot of health problems and, by all accounts, should have been dead months ago, but Charlotte couldn't let him go. Matt told me that she had called a vet over to have him put to sleep but couldn't go through with it and sent the vet away. She called a second time and, finally, had him put down. In her E-mail, Charlotte didn't sound that upset. She did say she was sad about the prospect of Boots dying and blue about her job finding efforts but she still sounded like the same Charlotte I knew, so I wasn't worried. She told me she would send me a snail mail letter and for me to kept E-mailing her. I had her cell phone number but I didn't call. I wish I had. I wrote her another e-mail on the 26th of September, letting her know I was thinking about her.
A whole week passed and I still didn’t hear from her and I never called to check on her. A week can be a lifetime, as I soon found out. Not until her friend Matt called me on Tuesday, October 5, did a think anything was wrong. He told me Charlotte had left her Grandmother's house Sunday afternoon, October 3, and didn't say where she was going. Her mother had filed a missing persons report on Monday after she didn't show up. By the weekend, she still hadn't shown up and her cell phone was no longer accepting messages since the mailbox was full. Her credit cards were not being used, either. During the time I got the first call from Matt and October 13th, I kept thinking she would show up in Portland. Or she was staying at a Hare Krishna temple (we had gone up to one in Portland a few years ago and she really liked it. They were vegans and she felt comfortable with them). Or she had herself committed into a hospital. I never really fathomed the emotional pain she must have been in. People are speculating that she took off from her Grandma's house and went straight up to Feather River. She loved nature and loved camping and hiking. And she loved the water. This was her element and the place where she decided her time on this planet was to end. I admit, I'm mad at her. Angry that she could be so selfish. Was she even thinking about all of the people who loved her? I remember when we had gone up to Bend, OR for a Library conference and had shared a room. A fast, rushing river was behind the hotel, right outside our patio door and Charlotte went swimming in it. Well, at lease she tried. When she said she wanted to go in deeper water, I pleaded with her not too. The current was too fast and strong. I have a feeling if I hadn't been there, she would have gone to deeper water and she would have been fine. She never seemed to be afraid of anything. Anything except people. That’s another thing we had in common. Our loved for animals outweighed our like for humans. Charlotte hated crowds and speaking in front of people. Matt told me she was taking a beta-blocker to help her cope with large crowds and she had been on Zoloft for quite some time. I’m thinking that she might have dropped the medicine and it affected her brain function. Why else would a woman who had everything to live for suddenly decided to not live anymore? Charlotte’s birthday is the 24th of this month. I had gotten her a present and card before I knew about her disappearance. She would have turned 44. She will be buried along side the ashes of her beloved Boots and Harvey, whose ashes she kept with her for the two years since his passing. The pain is still fresh in my heart and it is a time where I wish I had more strong spiritual convictions but even so, I can close my eyes and see Charlotte, my silly, goofy friend who loved soy lattes and PBS and naps with her cats. I see her happy and smiling and confident with certain knowledge of whom we are and why we are here. Something we will all partake in eventually.
Jim Dwyer
October 18, 2004
Dear Carol and George,
My heart goes out to you in your time of sorrow and loss. You are both wonderful, compassionate people who have gladdened the hearts of others. May our love fill your hearts now.
Paula Scholtes
October 18, 2004
I wish I could have met her. She sounds like someone I would have really enjoyed talking with. Much love to Carol & Merrie & Megan.
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