Charlene Letty Duckart

Charlene Letty Duckart passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by her family, on August 9, 2026. She was 76 years old. Charlene was born August 27, 1949, at Cottage Hospital in Chico, California, to Vilho and Marian Kosonen. The daughter of rice farmers, she grew up in Willows alongside her younger brother, Vic Kosonen, and graduated from Willows High School. In May of 1968, Charlene married her high school sweetheart, Douglas Duckart, beginning a partnership that would span nearly six decades. As young newlyweds, Charlene attended beauty school while Doug became a barber. The two dreamed of getting jobs aboard a cruise ship and seeing the world together. Life had different plans, taking them first to Modesto and then Fresno. Along the way, they welcomed their only child, Heather Ann Duckart Zanotto. A teaching position for Doug eventually brought the young family to Yreka, where Charlene would make her home for the next 51 years. She worked as an aide at Gold Street School, helping third graders and supervising countless children on the playground. She had a natural way of taking care of people, an instinct that extended far beyond her work. Despite facing many health challenges throughout her life, Charlene never allowed them to define her. She possessed a remarkable strength—the quiet, steady kind that simply kept going. She was wise, loyal, selfless, and extraordinarily kind. To those who loved her, she came about as close to the perfection of a human being as one could hope to find. Charlene's creativity knew no limits. She was a gifted seamstress and master quilter, with the patience and precision to turn fabric into something beautiful. After retirement, she decided she wanted to learn to paint. In true Charlene fashion, she did, and she did it well. But perhaps her greatest masterpiece was the life she created around the people she loved. Her granddaughters, Peyton and Stella Zanotto, were among the greatest joys of her life. Being their Grammy was a role she embraced completely. She took them to swim lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons and countless other activities: the driving, waiting, watching, encouraging and simply showing up that only a Grammy can do. Together, those ordinary moments became a childhood filled with the unmistakable knowledge that Grammy was always there. Charlene loved her family and friends fiercely and with unwavering devotion. If Charlene loved you, you knew it. She was simply there. Charlene and Doug also loved an adventure. They loaded up their trailer and headed to the coast to breathe in the ocean air, took the boat out to fish or simply explore, and set off on countless RV trips. Many summers were spent fishing the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia. Their travels took them to Italy, Mexico, on cruises, and to many places in between. There were still adventures they wanted to take together. There is never quite enough time for all of them. Yet, home may have been Charlene's favorite place of all. More than 50 years ago, Charlene and Doug built their home together in Yreka. It was more than a house. It held the story of their family, the raising of a daughter, granddaughters coming through the door, holidays, celebrations, ordinary evenings, laughter, and a lifetime of memories. Every winter, Charlene waited impatiently for spring and summer. Long before the weather was ready to cooperate, she began buying plants and bulbs and imagining what would soon fill her yard with color. When warmer days finally arrived, she could spend countless hours in her garden. She loved sunshine, growing things, and making the world around her beautiful. Charlene lived a life filled with things she loved: family and friends, quilts and paint, flowers and gardens, fishing boats and RVs, ocean air, sunshine, beaches, Boston Terriers and the home she and Doug created together. But the things Charlene loved were not what made her extraordinary. It was how she loved them. Fully. Loyally. Generously. Fiercely. She leaves behind Douglas, her high school sweetheart and husband of nearly 60 years; her daughter, Heather; her son-in-law, Aldo; her beloved granddaughters, Peyton and Stella; her step-grandchildren, Krista, Nick, and Jenna, to whom she was a much-loved honorary Grammy; her half-sister, Nita Keehn; her brother, Vic Kosonen, and sister-in-law, Patty; her nephews, Will and David; her cherished Boston, Millie Mae; and the family and friends whose lives are immeasurably better for having had Charlene in them. But she leaves behind something far greater than the years she was given. She leaves a home filled with memories. A family that knows what it means to be loved completely. Beautiful things made by her hands. Lessons passed quietly from one generation to the next. And a lifetime of evidence that strength and kindness can exist in the very same person.

Charlene Letty Duckart

August 27, 1949 - August 9, 2026