Charlotte Suzanne Ritchie

1955 - 2024

Charlotte Suzanne Ritchie
01/09/1955 - 09/13/2024
Our beloved Charlotte passed away peacefully at home in Larkspur after a long and arduous illness, aged 69, with her life partner, Paul; and dog, Georgia, at her side. Char's kindness, compassion, generosity and wit were intact until the end. Who among us won't remember her glorious laugh even through the darkest of times?
She was born at Franklin Hospital (now Davies) in San Francisco and grew up in the city, attending Madison School then Convent of the Sacred Heart, where she was renowned for her pranks, including unscrewing the microphones from telephones and watching the nuns shout helplessly into the receivers.
The first of many transformative events happened when she enrolled at Sorbonne University in Paris and discovered her inner Parisienne. She learned perfect French, was as chic as any native, and made lifelong friends in the City of Lights. She graduated from the American College in Paris and eventually returned to San Francisco. Then at age 25, she took a trip to New York and fell madly in love with Manhattan. She ended up staying seven years, working in various jobs including apartment leasing, where she called herself "deals on heels." There, too, she made a wide circle of friends, even though she was proud of the fact that she rarely went west of 5th Ave., or south of 57th St.
When she returned to San Francisco, another transformative event occurred when Char became chronically ill. For years, she fought through it, then took up the cause of phone counseling for others with chronic conditions. She discovered a gift for compassionate healthcare, which propelled her into the graduate nursing program at USF. She graduated magna cum laude, eventually becoming a hospice nurse and leaving an indelible legacy among all her patients. She kept a thick binder of handwritten thank you notes from the families who she had helped in their most difficult moment and there were dozens. It was one of her proudest possessions.
Her other proudest possessions were her golden retrievers and she had a string of rescue dogs who were almost as beautiful as she was. They were like children to her, and Char's mother always referred to Sandy, Meagan, Chloe, Lexy, and Georgia as her "gran-doggers."
One thing Char hated was the fog, so in her 30s she moved to Marin and never looked back across the bay. There she met Paul Bruin, whose dry wit and love of goldens matched hers. They were together for 25 years.
Char is survived by her life partner, Paul Bruin; stepdaughter, Chloe Bruin; brother, Mark Ritchie (Renee Le Baron); sister, Tori Ritchie (Sam Whiting); nieces, Harriet and Bennett Ritchie; numerous cousins; and endless friends, from the Angels to her fellow hospice nurses to her AA community to those from New York and France and beyond.
A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Char asked that donations go to the Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County: ccscc.org/donate