Charlotte Graves Patton

(Instead of flowers, we would be grateful if donations could be made to The Open Door Community - https://opendoorcommunity.org/ or mailed to The Open Door Community, P. O. Box 10980, Baltimore, MD 21234.)

A service will be held at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Manhattan at 99th Street and Amsterdam Ave on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 12 noon.

Charlotte Graves Patton, 88, of New York City, died on October 26, 2023. Charlotte was born in New Jersey and resided with her family in Marlboro, New Jersey; Richmond, Virginia; and Des Moines, Iowa during the early years of her life. She earned a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) in 1957, and a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (New York, New York) in 1984. She married B. Frank Patton of Westfield, New Jersey in 1957. They had three daughters whom they raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The marriage ended in divorce in 1996.

Charlotte taught political science for over 40 years in both SUNY (Oswego) and CUNY (Hunter, John Jay, and York colleges). She authored and co-authored articles, co-authored a book, and presented in her areas of expertise in international relations and the politics of population, with a particular focus on India. She had a strong interest in the status of women and reproductive justice. She traveled to Kenya, Egypt, Turkey, China, and Mexico pertaining to her professional areas of interest, and she lived and taught for six months in India, a country she loved. She was a member of Amnesty International, and her group was instrumental in securing the release of a Malaysian political prisoner. She was an active member of NYC Episcopal churches, St. Mary's in the 1960s-1970s, and St. Michael's up through the time of her death. She was deeply concerned about her fellow New Yorkers and the crisis of homelessness beginning in the late 1970s. This motivated her and several others to establish the Saturday Kitchen at St. Michael's Church in 1983 where she volunteered for many years.

Amidst all of this, Charlotte was always focused on bringing together her extended family in her beloved Vermont summer home. She passed on to her daughters her strong social conscience, her love of the outdoors, and her passion for local, farm grown vegetables. She was a true New Yorker. She adored the variety of cultural experiences in NYC and thrived on walks with friends in her neighboring Riverside Park for the 60+ years she lived on the Upper West Side. She is survived by her daughters Jennifer Patton, Martha Patton (Tom Hart), and Charlotte W. Patton, her brothers Thomas Graves and William (Lorraine) Graves, her sister-in-law Sally Graves, and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her eldest brother, Charles Coakley Graves, III. Her daughters miss her deeply.