Charlotte Marie Kerr

Charlotte Marie "Charie" Kerr passed away on Monday April 6. She is survived by her daughter, Denise, and son, Matt. She also has two wonderful step granddaughters, Staci and Jaclyn, as well as Denise's daughter, Dallas Sparks. Dallas has three special children, Charie's great grandchildren, Layla Raegan and Jaxson. Charie was born in Rock Island Illinois, and the family moved across the country several times looking for work during the depression. After the war the California job boom had started and they settled around Long Beach. She got a job right out of college at North American Aviation, someday to become Rockwell International. There she met a fast talking, good looking parts clerk named Jim. When slim times hit, she went to work for Car & Driver magazine for a while and they decided to move in together to save money. But times being what they were, they had to make it official. A whirlwind marriage at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas in 1957 fixed that and four years later a daughter joined the party. Once North American Aviation (now NA Rockwell) recovered they came back and both Charie and Jim moved up the corporate ladder. When Kennedy announced we would put a man on the moon, Charie was ground zero for the start of the space race. Lots of hard work and late nights were allayed by working alongside the Gemini Team (The Right Stuff) and onto the Apollo program. Jim and Charie moved with Rockwell to Dallas Texas when the company was awarded the Space Shuttle contract. Among Charie's proudest accomplishments was working on the giant robot arm for the shuttle cargo bay. She also worked on another, top secret, space program in the 80's. The family didn't even know till twenty years later that she was involved in the Star Wars program. Not the movie, but the Strategic Defense Initiative, shooting warheads out of the sky with kinetic strike satellites. Charie and Jim retired in 1990 to Sandpoint, where Jim had learned to waterski as a teenager, being from Walla Walla. Charie was immediately recruited by the Community Assistance League and served that organization right up to today. A warmer more welcoming, fun, group of friends no one could ask for. CAL meant as much to Charie as her career did. Charie's other passion was art, and aside from collecting local artists' work, she served on the Pend Oreille Arts Council board for many years. People still talk about her "Elvira" costume when she organized the "Things That Go Bump in the Night" show. Charie had a sharp tongue, a wicked wit, a keen mind and a huge heart. We’ll miss her terribly.