Charlotte Pann

1975

Charlotte was my best friend. I met her in Mr. Baer’s algebra class where she sat in front of me. I was new to Millburn High School as a sophomore in 1958, and for a month or two, no one chatted with me, ate with me in the cafeteria, called me on the phone. I didn’t exist. I was only an observer of the vibrant social life going on around me. Then one day, Charlotte turned around before class to ask me if I would go on a double date with her boyfriend and his twin brother. I jumped at her offer, and we double dated all that year which led to a deep friendship. We discovered in each other kindred spirits.
When I got to really know Charlotte, I discovered her keen intelligence; her sense of humor; her altruistic nature; her honesty; her interest in all that went on around her; her common sense; a strong sense of what is right and wrong; what is fit and proper; her energy; ambition; optimism; and generosity. I trusted Charlotte with my life. I kept my diary at her house and wrote in it there so my snooping mother couldn’t read it, and Charlotte was instructed to burn it if anything ever happened to me.
She shared her life with me. Her friends became my friends, and there were a lot of them. Her home and family were my home and family. I spent a great deal of time at her home. Charlotte’s parents owned an upholstery shop on Millburn Avenue, and they lived in a small, walkup apartment on Main Street. They were immigrants who were just getting by, yet they shared so much of themselves with me. As soon as Charlotte was old enough to legally work, she went out and secured a part-time job to earn money for college. Her grades, social life, and extra-curricular activities never suffered, however.
Over the course of three years, we did everything together. We dated together even after the twin brothers went their separate ways. We took classes together and did the homework together. We partied, hung out, gabbed on the phone, went places, engaged in the same activities at school, and shared all our secrets. We were sisters.
One of the most perfect days of my life was with Charlotte. It was a Saturday in late April of our junior year. I had slept over at Charlotte’s house, and the day dawned warm and sunny. The trees were leafing out, and there were budding plants everywhere. We organized a picnic hike to Washington Rock with several school friends. Everyone met up, and we hiked through Locust Grove up to the grassy area at the top of the path. There we spent hours eating what we packed, laying on the grass in the warm sunshine and talking and gazing at the unbelievably clear, deep-blue sky and puffy, startlingly white cloud formations. When I think about it, I still see it clearly, and a feeling of peace comes to me.

The day of graduation, I picked up a pile of girls in Millburn in my 48 Chevy heap. We were heading west to the ceremonies at school, and the setting sun was directly in my eyes making it difficult to see. I can still hear the laughing and joking going on in that car, feel the aura of bright sunlight around us, and I feel the spirit of great hopes for the future we all expressed college, marriage, families. For Charlotte, most of that was not to be. To no one’s surprise, she had a very successful academic career at the University of Michigan, went for a masters at Temple U., if I recall correctly, and went on to NYU for a doctorate in the field of immunology. She became a research scientist whose career, whose whole life was cut down by metastatic cancer by the time she was 32.
One of my great treasures is film my father took of Char and me as we were about to go to a prom. There we are, dressed to the nines in formalwear looking gorgeous, and there are our dates who look like babies! There we are again at my Sweet 16 with all my high school friends, again all dressed up and looking like young ladies.
Charlotte will never grow old for me. I see her in my mind’s eye – her beautiful, smiling face with those large, dark eyes surrounded by her dark, curly hair; healthy, vibrant, alive, and forever young.
~ Marilyn Kurz Graber