Charlotte Benner passed away peacefully in her sleep, at her home in Yarmouth Port, MA, on February 13, 2020. She was 86.

Charlotte was born in New York, NY on August 1, 1933, the “one and only” child of Charles Van Antwerp and Katherine Karcher Benner. She spent her formative years in Englewood, NJ, where she attended the Elisabeth Morrow and Dwight School for Girls. Among the accolades the Dwight senior class bestowed on Charlotte was “Most Distinguished Laugh,” an honor she undoubtedly would have contended for within any group she joined through her remarkably merry life.

Following her graduation from Tufts University in 1957, and a sojourn in Boulder, CO, from which she “almost never came back,” Charlotte did return to New York City to begin a long and devoted teaching career which led her eventually to the Springside School, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. As of this writing, there are no extant tributes from those years, but the magic that happened whenever she was with young children was unmistakable.

Charlotte’s retirement from teaching led to her full-time move to the Cape (punctuated by understandable escapes to Naples, FL) in 1983 – a time when she could still walk her beloved Maggie on most beaches. She pursued her love of antiques, and the hunt, as a regular at the Saturday Night Fever auctions; she demonstrated a keen gift as a hostess, of which the oral and photographic evidence is irrefutable; and she devoted herself to preserving Cape landmarks and promoting the visual arts. Among other volunteer efforts, Charlotte served as a trustee of The Cape Cod Museum of Art from 1995-2005.”*

*Please read the full obituary here, https://www.capecodtimes.com/obituaries/20200216/charlotte-benner-86 which published in The Cape Code Times on February 16, 2020.