Charis “Cherie” Bratt passed away on Aug. 27, 2023 at 90 years of age. She was born on Dec. 31, 1932 in Lake Placid, New York, to Ruth and Stanley Cobane, the second of four children. She had two brothers Stanley and Craig, and one sister Janet.
Growing up in Lake Placid, she enjoyed its friendly, small-town character, winter sports, and the magnificent color transformations as the seasons changed.
She was captain of the high school ski team, which competed against other local high schools. She graduated from Lake Placid High School in 1950 as salutatorian of her class, and matriculated with a scholarship to Syracuse University, but had to drop out of college because smoking was allowed in class which triggered asthma attacks.
She then found work in New York City at the YWCA and later came to work at Syracuse on the American Airlines reservation desk. It was there that she met future husband Peter Bratt one day while playing tennis on the courts in Kirk Park.
Peter, a tennis player at Syracuse University, said to friends, “I have to meet this girl, she’s playing against a guy and beating him.”
They met and soon became friends, lovers, and husband and wife. Married in 1954, they started a family while he continued his college studies, graduating with a BS degree, then going on to post graduate studies eventually earning a Ph.D with a major in physics.
Through the college years they lived in poverty but didn’t know it. Yes, money was short but there was no despair; they were happily building foundations for the future. Cherie earned an honorary degree of PhT (Putting hubby Through).
In 1963 she came to Goleta with five children and husband Peter who had accepted a job at the Santa Barbara Research Center (a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Company).
In those days the IRS tax forms asked for the spousal occupation where an accepted input was typically “housewife” or “homemaker.”
Cherie was truly the homemaker. Besides the usual cooking and cleaning, she was the shepherd who guided the children through their early years: at schools; La Patera Elementary, Goleta Valley Junior High, and Dos Pueblos High; boy and girl scout troops, YMCA camps, Goleta Presbyterian Church, and home activities.
She was also a community builder. In 1965-70, along with the Lake Los Carneros Residents Association and others, she led the effort to save Lake Los Carneros from high density- apartment development to become the nature preserve it is today.
Cherie also saw first-hand the miserable living conditions for some families in Goleta, and she helped form the Goleta Valley Housing Committee, which in the 1970s was able to obtain a HUD secured loan to build Villa L’Esperanza, one of the first low-cost housing developments in this area. Later, this led to another development called Casa de Los Carneros built in the 2000s.
As a Santa Barbara County Planning Commissioner (1971-79), Cherie advocated for, in general: proper zoning regulations, good design plans, water conservation, and particularly for bikeways.
Despite opposition from some county government officials, she got the first off-road bikeway built from Goleta Beach to Modoc Road and, along Maria Ygnatio creek, to University Avenue.
This was unprecedented because it passed under Hollister Avenue, the S&P railroad tracks, the 101 freeway and along a creek bed that some considered too dangerous from flooding. She had to remind them that is only during the very infrequent rains and could be gated off when necessary. This route connected UCSB to the wider community and many other subsequent on-road bike ways.
Thus began a trend that remains to this day such that the Santa Barbra south coast area is now recognized as one of the top three bike-friendly municipalities in the U.S.
Cherie belonged to the Audubon Society, participated in many Christmas bird counts, and hosted the telephone site that alerted members to rare bird sightings in Santa Barbara County. This led to her work on much larger birds as a volunteer with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, participating in the condor recovery program
Cherie sat on many different mountain ridges; locating, counting and identifying the remaining condors that were nearing extinction. The success of this program is well known; condors have escaped extinction, and healthy populations are roaming the sky above our back-country mountains.
One day, while sitting on a rock on a mountaintop waiting for a condor to appear, Cherie looked down to see strange multicolored organisms growing on her rock and wondered what they were.
She learned that they were lichens and decided to find out more about them. This opened up a whole new vista for her to explore. She went to Santa Barbara City College studying natural history, botany and geology. Cherie learned how to collect, identify and curate lichen specimens. The learning was enhanced by visits with international experts whom she took on field trips throughout California.
In 1983 she became a volunteer research assistant, and was assigned laboratory space at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. With these credentials, she joined excursions and professional meetings with other lichenologists throughout California, Oregon, Montana, British Columbia, Arizona, Ecuador and Spain.
Her special area of research was the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Over time, Cherie visited all eight of the islands, becoming a member of the very exclusive All Eight Club(only about 40 members worldwide). She was a founding member of the California Lichen Society formed in 1994.
In 1998 she moved to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and donated her entire lichen collection (with herbarium cabinets) to them, providing a trove of some 40,000 specimens for use by future scientists. She continued working at the garden for the next 10 years, teaching others and conducting training workshops for U.S. Forest Service Rangers, officially retiring in 2008.
In 2016 she was given the Ramalina menzeseii award by CALS in recognition of her excellent work with lichens of California.
She has also been honored by her lichenology peers in having seven new species named after her.
By this time, signs of Parkinson’s disease began to appear, along with other health problems, and she could no longer accomplish her favorite outdoor activities. But, recognizing the inevitable, she bravely continued living on with the help of expert medical care at Sansum Clinic and the Parkinson Association of Santa Barbara, amid the comforts of home and family.
On Thursday Aug. 27, 2023 Cherie quietly passed away, surrounded by family and Hospice caregivers.
Her memory will long live on because of her love of family, steely spirit, and desire to make a better world to live in.
Cherie is survived by her husband Peter; children Jeff Bratt (Ann Willard), Heidi Bratt, Andrea Bratt (Paul Berquist), Greg Bratt (Susan), Jon Bratt (Wanda); and granddaughter Emily Bratt.
A memorial service and reception will be held 5-8 p.m. Sept. 17 at Goleta Presbyterian Church, 6067 Shirrell Way. All are welcome.
Donations in Cherie’s honor may be made to the Goleta Presbyterian Church Memorial Garden Fund.