With the deepest felt sorrow, the daughters of Charlotte Mae Redding (nee McCarthy), 87, announce her entering eternal life on January 29, 2021.
Charlotte Mae was born on April 24, 1933, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the daughter of the late John and Margaret Nate McCarthy. She grew up on the family dairy farm on Old Irish Road. She attended St. Mary Catholic Grade School in Clarks Mills, Wisconsin, graduated from Valders High School in 1951, and attended Pensacola Jr. College. She married the late William Redding, Sr. on January 5, 1989.
Charlotte was employed as Office Manager at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, Waukegan High School in Illinois, the Marine Corps Exchange at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for 30 years as an Office Manager at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.
Charlotte loved to travel and explored on long walks. As a Navy wife, she lived in San Diego; Iwakuni, Japan; Great Lakes, Illinois; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She delved into every city’s culture to enrich her daughters’ experience of the world. With family and friends, she visited Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Columbia, and the Philippines.
Despite a massive stroke in 2000, she traveled by RV across the United States, never passing up a family reunion, wedding, or dinner out.
Charlotte has been a woman of substance, unflappable, one to silently ponder in her heart, never one to cast the stone that would create ever-widening ripples. She had a finely honed conscience.
She was an avid reader of the classics and murder mysteries. She played guitar, piano, and organ. She sang country and lullabies, calypso, and steamy jazz. Her thoughtful poetry reflects her experiences: “Bogota,” about the unforgettable “handsome, beaming” young man who exchanged a smile, though he had a “shriveled body with shirt sleeves and pant legs void of limbs”; to her late mother “Mama, Did You Ever Live?”; “The Cuban Exile,” about an old man she befriended; “The Mighty Oak,” whom she called “my pride, my conversation, my masterpiece.”
Charlotte loved her cats and her dogs. She loved God and the USA. She was a devoted wife to “My Bill,” whom she often said she misses beyond words. To her daughters and granddaughter, as well as friends, she always had a radiant smile and outstretched hand. Throughout all her life she dreamed of her Mom and Pop. Of her Mom, she wrote: “My last memory was following, 7 cars behind you, in the cortege, and as we rounded the curve in the highway, I caught sight of you in the distance and I knew you were still leading the way, as always.” Of Pop, she wrote that they would walk hand in hand to the woodshed to talk, him leaning over the horn of a saddle and her on a stool at his feet, where he would begin with, “Well, Chally, tell me….” Charlotte will be greatly missed.
Her remaining family are her daughters Judy (Carlos) Diaz and Jan Sheppard and granddaughter Kathryn and nieces and nephews Vicky (Jeff) Neumeyer, Jayette (Bill) Kramer, Carol (Van) Odegaard, Linda Preiss, Consuela (Tom) O’Malley, and John (Sandy) McCarthy. She is survived by Patrick Kealey, the father of her children.
She was preceded in death by her parents John and Margaret Nate McCarthy, son-in-law Russell Sheppard, sisters and brothers-in-law Lorraine and Jim Fischer, Lauretta and Frank Bartel, Veronica and Les Gerl, Margie and Edwin Engelbrecht, and brothers and sisters-in-law Leroy and Ruth and Earl and Shirley, nephews Dale (Betty) Fischer and Eddie Engelbrecht and nieces June (Jerry) Kolby, Judy (Ron) Hickmann, Darlene (Bob) Waniger, Diane (Paul) Isselmann, and Jean (Milt) Schwehn.
Charlotte gives special thanks to neurosurgeon Dr. Christopher Neumann and all of her rehabilitation therapists.
Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Friday, March 19, 2021, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Clarks Mills. Celebrating the Mass of Christian Burial will be Rev. Richard Klingeisen. Charlotte will be laid to rest in the church cemetery following mass where Charlotte will join her devoted husband. The family will greet relatives and friends on Friday, March 19 at the church beginning at 10:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Escambia County, Florida Animal Shelter.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home, Cantonment, Florida, and Pfeffer Funeral Home, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, are entrusted with arrangements. To view photographic memories of Charlotte, the family invites you to please visit https://www.fcfhs.com/obituaries/Charlotte–M–Redding?obId=19845984#/photosAndVideos
