Charlotte and I were both born in Cambridge Mass, grew up in suburban Boston and were both Art History majors at Barnard. A year after graduation we were roommates in NYC, the year she met Arthur and I met my husband. She and Arthur were at my wedding in Boston in 1965. I have two wonderful pictures. One is of Charlotte and me at a concert of Diana Ross and the Supremes at a nightclub in NYC in 1965 and the other is of Charlotte and Arthur at my wedding.
After 1966, however, we were living on completely different continents so communication faltered.
We hooked up again at the Barnard 50th reunion in Spring 2013. She looked so terrific. We started to correspond after that and she came to Israel to visit me in Tel Aviv. Then when she became part of the class of 1963 “Renaissance" with other Barnard friends from our dorm days, I celebrated from afar. I think it is because of this link after the 50th that I feel her loss so deeply. She was not just a friend. It is a story of friendship over a lifetime and a testament to the creative energy and accomplishment of our shared education.
Charlotte was an outgoing, vibrant person with a great capacity to love. I always felt she loved me and that love gave me strength. Another Barnard graduate, Jamie Rubin, has already shared here so beautifully about the multitude of people who felt that Charlotte had a special place in her heart only for them. I’m glad I was one of them. I miss her a lot.

Carol Rosenthal Wexler
Sydney, Australia

Charlotte was a supervisee of mine decades ago.at the Ackerman Institute in NYC, bright, talented and with a great sense of humor.  I saw her very rarely in the intervening years until I moved to LA in August of this year, and she graciously invited me to her back yard (because of the virus) for a visit and to attend a peer supervision group to meet soon. In that all-too- brief evening we got right into the heart of our various concerns.  We talked about our families, and I gained from her crisp and straight-forward approach an example of how I might better address my concerns with my own family.  In that moment Charlotte became my teacher and I her student. Thank you Charlotte for welcoming me to LA and sharing your wisdom with me.  It is wonderful to read all of these testimonials and learn about so many lives you have touched to such beautiful effect

I first met Charlotte 36 years ago on my way to attend a workshop in New York City when I asked a passing group of women for directions.  Charlotte not only helped but invited me to join them, as she and her colleagues were also headed to hear the late, great Carl Whittaker. At that time I was the social worker at a school near her office in Montclair, New Jersey and looking for a therapist to help our students and their families.  I referred the family of a student who was refusing to come to school to Charlotte and the next day he returned to and stayed in school.  She soon became not only one of my best referral sources, but a fast friend and mentor in how to use family therapy strategies within the walls of a school.  Her role as mentor became official when I entered The Center For Family Studies, the post graduate family therapy training program in New Jersey in which she was my principal trainer.  Her influence continues to profoundly affect my work as a family therapist as find myself in every session reciting my mantra, “What Would Charlotte Do?”

My husband and I enjoyed so many dinners, plays, concerts, birthdays, weddings and other family events with Charlotte and Arthur over the years both in Montclair and Los Angeles.  Charlotte and I attended many psychotherapy conferences together and spent extra time exploring New Orleans, Washington DC, Santa Fe, Boston, Baltimore, San Diego and Chicago.  Not all travel with Charlotte was psychotherapy related.  We enjoyed Tanglewood concerts near her cottage in the Berkshires and once drove to Mount Madonna in northern California for a Yoga and Meditation retreat where we spent an entire weekend without wine.  Most recently we attended The Palm Springs International Film Festival.  Everywhere we went Charlotte collected new friends and reunited with old ones.

I will miss her quick wit, her energy, her enthusiasm for new experiences, her intellectual curiosity, her appreciation of good wine and food, her eye for art and her ability to cut through bullshit to get to the heart of issues.  She enriched my life professionally and personally in ways I am still discovering.  Charlotte, I love you, I miss you and will carry you with me always.

Our dear classmate from Barnard College Class of 1963 died on September 25 in Los Angeles. Charlotte was a class officer, one of our three class correspondents. An accomplished social worker, she was to have been a lead panelist in our September 24 all-class Zoom event.

Several of us – including Linda Sweet, Joan Freilich, Frankie Stein, Naomi Lerman, Jackie Stuart and Ellen Saunders -- attended the Zoom funeral for Charlotte on September 29. Three “shivas” (events in the days following a Jewish funeral for visiting the family and paying one’s respect) were held. I believe that several classmates attended one of the first two shivas. I joined the last of the three on October 1st.

Perhaps because it was on Zoom, this shiva was a remarkable, inspiring experience-- led by the staff of the synagogue where Charlotte was deeply involved (Temple Israel of Hollywood). There were 55 people on the Zoom – mostly other social workers and members of Temple Israel, but also at least three classmates -- myself, Susan Youdovin and Ellen Zachariason Ellickson ( who became a key L.A. contact for us about local arrangements). After a moving 5 minutes of prayer, the rabbi called on several individuals who each had some special things to say about our friend. The formal shiva began promptly at 8:00pm Eastern time and concluded around 8:50 when anyone who wished could offer comments. Susan and Ellen had signed off, but I had lingered … and so I raised my hand and said something to the effect of ….



I am one of a large number of Charlotte’s Barnard College classmates who were devastated by her death. I knew Charlotte in elementary school and then at college where we ate and laughed together in the dorms. Charlotte was especially in our minds, as last Thursday our class held a major Zoom discussion where Charlotte was to have been a lead speaker. (It was only in tracking her down for this that we became aware of her illness.)



Not too long ago, I spoke to Charlotte about a prime issue that has engaged our classmates – mortality! “Charlotte,” I cried, “ I must get my affairs in order, write a will, figure out final arrangements.” At that point, I could hear giggles from the other Zoom squares – because everyone there knew Charlotte so well. Charlotte, of course, immediately countered, saying that she was going to LIVE, that she had painted an electric blue stripe in her hair that would draw calls of “Hey, cool lady!” A life lesson from Charlotte to me. And I was deeply pleased to see both her sons light up with smiles.

Charlotte and I were planning to go to a psychotherapy conference in December. We started talking how at all these conferences when it is time for questions a man is always the first to raise his hand and then proceed to pontificate. She told me she was once lecturing about communication. It was time for questions and true to form a man raised his hand and began opining. She interrupted him and said, “Thank you, I forgot. Every time there is a chance to ask questions, the first one is always a man, and it’s never a question.”
that in a nut shell is one of the things I loved best about Charlotte.