Having survived her 5 children for over 60 years, Charlotte Mary Palmer passed away peacefully on 9 April 2026. At the age of 99, she was in perfect health, taking no medications and having no known health problems- other than arthritis- when she fell and broke her hip. After successful hip surgery, she began to decline. She was born on February 3rd,1927 in Ithica, New York and grew up in Okarche, Oklahoma during the Great Depression which she never completely got over.

After she died, she was shocked to find out that cremation is not reversible, but she’d already signed up for it and was unable to un-sign since she was in the afterlife… which is also not reversible. She had all her own teeth when she died, but not the baby ones that fell out when she was six or seven, she had lost those. If you have found any baby teeth and think these may be the ones, please return them.

She received a degree in fine arts from the University of New Mexico, then went on to earn a degree in occupational therapy. She married Ronald Glenn Palmer and helped put him through medical school at UCLA and then at Kansas University. He became a pediatrician.

She sewed her own wedding dress, cutting out the pattern on the floor of her dormitory. She once had her children draw pictures on a piece of fabric, then turned it into a skirt that she wore folk dancing. She loved tennis, reading, dancing, gardening and rescuing animals. She once rescued a dog she named “Lucy” from some drug addicts who thought it would be a good idea to breed springer spaniels. Her neighbors, Brad and Carla, assisted in the rescue which involved crossing over a state line. Charlotte thought this would be highly illegal which I guess made her a fugitive, but as her grandson, Jason Warth, would say, “The best kind of fugitive”.

She believed in free-range children, so her children were allowed to raft down wild rivers, sleep outside in tents and ride their bicycles to school, the library, parks and rivers. She grew up without prejudice and expected her children to do the same. She was known for incredible logic as she often told her children things like, “If you fall out of that tree and break your neck, you’re not going to the store with me later.”.

Donations may be made to Denkai Animal Sanctuary (970. 217.1457).

A potluck in remembrance of Charlotte will be held on June 6th from 1 to 4 PM in Mancos, CO. For further information, please call Semberlyn Crossley on 970.570.9773.