Charlotte Drea Adams Rising ’39

Charlotte Adams Rising, 95, passed away March 21, 2018 in Medford, Oregon. The only child of Dr. William Francis Drea and Rhoda Smith Drea, Charlotte was born July 25, 1922, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She graduated from the Northampton School for Girls in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1939 and then spent three years at Stanford University before her marriage to 2nd Lt. Waldemar H. (Bud) Adams in 1942. After World War II, they made their home in the Detroit area, where they raised their four children.
After Bud’s death in 1964, Charlotte became the Registrar for the Merrill Palmer Institute in Detroit, completed her undergraduate degree at Wayne State University, and graduated from the University of Michigan Graduate School of Library Science. She married the Rev. Richard L. Rising in 1969, moved with him to Rochester, New York, and pursued her career as librarian until their move to Dolores, Colorado. They both retired while in Colorado and subsequently moved to Sonoma, California. But Oregon beckoned, and in 1991 they moved to Ashland, where Richard died in 1998. Beginning in the spring of 2000, Charlotte shared her life with Theodore F. Carter and moved with him to Rogue Valley Manor in 2005.
During her years in Oregon, Charlotte was a reader, Lay Eucharistic Minister, and vestry member at Ashland’s Trinity Episcopal Church, a board member of the Tudor Guild and Ashland’s AAUW, a member of Chapter FO, P.E.O., and a respite volunteer for the Providence Hospital Hospice.
She is survived by her children, Natalie Riley, William Adams, Charles Adams, and Michael Adams; her step children, John Rising, Cynthia Rising, Caroline Maxey, Stephen Rising, Catherine Rising, and William Rising; eight grandchildren; eight step grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

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