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(click HERE for Char's photo library)
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Hello Friends and Family of Char –
The purpose of this web site is to allow all of us to celebrate Char’s life – her spirit; her accomplishments; her impact on us; our memories of her – and share these celebrations with each other.
The use of this site is easy – just type in what you want to share (or copy in text from a file), type your name, and then hit the “Post Message” button. Your message will be immediately posted to the web site, along with your name and the date and time of the posting.
Thank you for sharing the “spirit of Char” with the rest of us!
Lots of love on behalf of the whole family.
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Tom, John, Sarah and Didi
[ 10/18/2006 10:00:22 PM ]
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Charlotte Cleveland Death Notice Sent to Papers
Charlotte C. Cleveland died on Monday, October 16, 2006 at her home in Westwood, MA due to pancreatic cancer. Char is known by all for her love of life and service to others. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 21st, beginning at 2:00 p.m. at St. Michael's Parish, 112 Randolph Avenue, Milton, MA 02186. A reception at Straus Library, Milton Academy, 170 Centre Street, Milton, MA will follow the memorial service. Char is survived by her 4 children and 8 grandchildren and former husband. Please no flowers. Send contributions to The International Rescue Committee at www.theirc.org, 877-733-8433; the VNA Care Hospice at www.vnacarenetwork.org, 888-663-3688 ext. 1370; and, support your local Democratic candidate.
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Char's Globe Obituary from Oct-27-06
Click here to download it (in Adobe PDF format). |
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hi char,
i love you sooooooooooo much. I think of you a lot and i want you to know how much i love you, allt he fun times we had that i still love to this day. I think of the times up at north haven and wish we could be there just one more time. Fifteen four the rest wont score. But i am So glad to be in your life and you in mine. You are someone who will always be on my side when ever i need you. Ill give you a call whenever i need you. Char i love love love you. Lots of love like you have never seen before. I just can't tell how much i love you. |
Posted by: jake lyscars
[ 2/24/2008 11:59:38 PM ] |
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Hey Char,
I am just now, months later, beginning to realize your death in full. It takes a bit of time for these sorts of things to sink into me. I just wanted you to know that you were one of the most wonderful people I have ever known and I am so grateful to have had the chance to know you. I always looked forward to spending time with you. Our annual visits to North Haven to relax and spend time with you were so crucial to my childhood. I will always remember the nights we stayed up while you and my parents discussed a less than agreeable field of politics on one of those beautiful, warm, summer evenings on the Island. Jake and I would walk for hours searching thebeaches for another buoy yo add to the collection which I believe is still under the Portable. I can smell the house right now.
Coming to stay in Boston with you was just as eventful. Whether it was a trip to the museum, or a walk along the Charles for Breast Cancer, you were always up for it. You changed the lives of everyone you encountered, Char. I hope you are still having plenty of adventures. I think about you every night. Much Love,
Alexander Lyscars
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Posted by: Alexander Lyscars
[ 3/6/2007 3:44:47 PM ] |
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| My fondest memories of Charlotte (Mrs. Cleveland as we most often addressed her) were hanging out in the kitchen on Centre Street at that white art deco round table. It was our home away from home and, even if she was sick of us being there, we always felt welcomed and never had the sense that we should go home. I think we all became politically aware around that table because Charlotte never held back with her opinions and she had a way of sucking us all in. Her magnetism was tremendous. We never felt like she was someone's mother trying to horn in on our time, she was fun to be with, and the stories she would tell...they spring to mind from time to time and make me smile. She was a wonderful woman. |
Posted by: Anne Brennan Flink
[ 2/28/2007 9:40:11 AM ] |
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Dear All:
Your messages and tributes are wonderful! All of us appreciate your wit, grace and eloquence. Thank you, thank you!
Here is the eulogy that I read at Mum's memorial service.
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Eulogy for Char
Good afternoon, I am Tom Cleveland, my mother’s eldest child and first-born son.
I want to thank all of you for coming this afternoon, as I am sure she would want to do, to honor and celebrate her rich and vibrant presence on this precious globe that she loved so much. For coming together with:
1. her 5 brothers and sisters that she loved so much,
2. with her many nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews that she loved so much,
3. with her 4 children, their spouses and sweethearts, and 8 grand children that she loved so much,
4. and, of course, with all those friends that she loved so much – friends from politics and bars, friends from causes and travels and friends from every walk of life and circumstance – friends from that wide magnetic net that Char threw into the water whenever she walked through the door.
My mother was an expert at inclusion – as her own children grew up, she adopted new “kids” either through mothering boarders in her house at Milton Academy or neighbors in Cambridge. She had the ability to reach across boundaries to bring you into that special universe called: “Char’s World”.
Char was a transformer. She was a tireless advocate for social change from when she took us to march against the Vietnam War in 1971 or told us to get off our butts and do something the next summer in 1972 – John and I and 3 friends went out to Michigan to work for George McGovern’s presidential campaign. It seems like just yesterday that she took me to DC again to march against the war in Iraq – just trying to advise her pal George Bush to do the right thing.
Did I mention that she was a Democrat? She and Shirley Goldman and 8 other women tried to take over the Milton Town Democratic Committee in the 1970’s. Mum’s campaign slogan was the same as her initials; “CCC” standing for “Charlotte Cleveland Cares!”
Mum did care, she cared about the Bosnian War and started the Knitting Project with Babbie Cameron in 1994. This group of women from the Boston area sent tons and tons of American wool to refugee camps in Croatia where war torn women could literally knit their lives back together as they shared their grief in circles of other tender women.
Women’s rights were big Char concerns. In Holicachuck Alaska, in 1955, she organized an all Womens Picnic – all of the women in the village went off in boats for a “womens only” picnic – causing a big stir in this traditional Alaskan village still in a very subsistence economy.
During the last couple of years, I have been able to take care of Char just as she took care of me so gentlely in the first years of my life. My sweetheart, Wendy, reminded me that I, amongst all of Char’s children, was the only one to have her full motherly attention during that first year of my life before the other kids came along and I too was so lucky to have so much time with Mum here at the end of her life.
She struggled against the realization that she probably would die soon, too soon for her and too soon for the rest of us. John, Sarah and Didi and I all individually asked her to talk about her thoughts about death and dying to give her and us the chance to speak about something as mysterious, and sometimes scary, as dying. Char was never much interested in any of these conversations - although she seemed to appreciate our concerns!
One week ago, on Saturday, as Mum lay quietly in bed, dying so certainly, my brother John leaned over to ask her “So, Mum, how do you feel – are you ready to die?” “No,” she replied in a matter-of-fact kind of voice, “I am still too full of life”.
“Too full of life” she remains today and will stay that way in all our memories.
Thank you, Mum, for all your fearlessness, your optimistic outlook, and your indomitable love of life and family. We will miss you very much.
Presented at memorial service,
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church,
Milton, MA,
October 21, 2006
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Posted by: Tom Cleveland Jr.
[ 12/19/2006 8:56:45 AM ] |
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As the 1948 Class Correspondent, I will send classmates new of Char's death and give them your web site to add messages of their own. Char was a beloved classmate wne will be missed.
Carol Hartland |
Posted by: Anonymous
[ 12/18/2006 2:44:28 PM ] |
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