Charlotte Pacheco
Remembering Charlotte Pacheco Martinez Lundberg
On October 12, 2011, after a long and valiant battle with multiple myeloma, Charlotte Pacheco Martinez Lundberg (Empalme Escobedo 66 & 67) died peacefully with husband Steve and her family at her side
When I look at the photo of the Amigos Anonymous group in
Dr. Gustavo Carvajal’s Ferrocariles Nacionales de Mexico hospital garden, it is hard to believe that we were ever that young or that 45 years have passed since the day that the Tres Estrellas de Oro bus rolled into Celaya with this bunch of idealistic, enthusiastic, college kids. Some were the older, wiser Amigo veterans; others were newcomers, naïve and nervous about what was in store for us, about how we were
going to get along with our untested Spanish, or how we would be accepted by the people of the town – let alone what we were going to do. We made our way up the rutted road toward that historic charming tourist mecca of San Miguel de Allende – stopping 50 km short at a not-so-charming Empalme Escobedo. Charlotte Pacheco spent that summer, with the rest of us, falling in love with the scruffy railroad town, with the Fuentes family, Padre Nick, with the remarkable people of Empalme, Guadalupe and surrounding ranchos. They accepted us into their homes and community; they were patient and supportive of our blundering, at times presumptuous, efforts at community development. Amigos Anonymous opened up a new world for us. We came away from those summers with a deeper understanding of the lives of others and a commitment to working within our communities for a more just and compassionate world. It was life- changing - and a heck of a good time.
After a second summer in Empalme Escobedo in1967, Charlotte graduated from Holy Names College (class of 1968), married Ben Martinez, the Empalme team leader, and moved to San Francisco’s Mission District. This was the Mission District at the end of the sixties - an exciting and turbulent time of passionate, often confrontational, politics and Saul Alinski community organizing. Ben was the president of the Mission Coalition, the major grass roots advocacy organization in the Mission, working on the issues of housing, tenants’ rights, employment, youth activities. Ben and Charlotte’s flat was a busy hub for meetings and intense strategy sessions lasting long into the night. All the while Charlotte was enrolled at San Francisco State, trying to get some studying done as she worked on her teaching credential.
As the marriage ended after three years, Charlotte began her teaching career with sixth-graders at Patrick Henry Elementary School on Potrero
Hill. From the very beginning she had the successful mix of toughness and patience, compassion and creativity that made her effective and respected. She worked with a close group of new teachers and community folks who have remained her friends through the years.
In the mid-seventies, while teaching full- time, Charlotte started taking evening classes at Golden Gate Law School. After graduating and passing the bar, she began a new career in 1979 in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office where she earned the reputation of being tough, yet always fair, a
dynamic trial attorney, a mentor to new staff and a valued friend. As the head of the narcotics division for many years, she was a “prosecutor’s prosecutor” who was equally respected by her District Attorney colleagues, the police inspectors and the defense bar. Her fellow attorneys testify that she was smart, dedicated, feisty, tenacious, funny and frank. “You always knew where you stood with Charlotte.” She never quite lost the hint of her native Fall River, Massachusetts, roots, never minced words and could “out-cuss anyone in the building”. Yet it was her kindness and compassion that left the lasting impression.
In 1992 Charlotte married Steve Lundberg, a San Francisco police inspector with whom she had worked while in the District Attorney’s Office. A short time later, in 1995, she received a diagnosis of multiple myeloma - a sentence with a life expectancy of five years. After a stem cell transplant in 1996 she resigned from the DA’s office and together with Steve used that same fierce energy and determination that she showed in the classroom and the court to combat the disease. Charlotte was active in the campaign to fight her disease through the Muliple Myeloma Research Foundation disease.
For the next fifteen years, while she was undergoing lengthy treatments and enduring considerable discomfort and pain, she continued to live a full, active life with Steve. Theirs was an extreme version of the routine familiar to retired folks: taking classes, piano lessons (even giving recitals), sharpening her Spanish skills, reading, taking advantage of the City’s cultural life: opera, symphony, plays, restaurants, dinners with friends. She and Steve traveled extensively over those fifteen years. Their busy schedule made most of her friends feel like slackers. Like the lawyer she was, Charlotte was constantly debating, arguing about politics, questioning her friends about their beliefs and the meaning of life. While she griped and complained about hypocrisy and injustice and politicians, she never felt sorry for herself, never talked or complained about the extent of her pain or the difficulties of her struggle against multiple myeloma. As her husband Steve said, “She had the disease, but it never had her.”
In addition to her large circle of friends from college, Amigos Anonymous, teaching, the court, the neighborhood, and multiple myeloma community, she had a rich family life as grandmother to Steve’s grandchildren, aunt and great aunt to countless nephews and nieces in the East Bay.
We will all miss Charlotte: the passion, kindness, frankness, her searching and questioning. Another Massachusetts native Teddy Kennedy called his autobiography True Compass. I am sure that Charlotte had some choice words for him and the “damned Democratic Party” and “why they can’t do anything right”..... but for her community of friends Charlotte Pacheco Martinez Lundberg was the “true compass”; and although she would scoff at the notion, she was and is an inspiration to all who knew her.
Written by Mike Monley
On October 12, 2011, after a long and valiant battle with multiple myeloma, Charlotte Pacheco Martinez Lundberg (Empalme Escobedo 66 & 67) died peacefully with husband Steve and her family at her side
When I look at the photo of the Amigos Anonymous group in
Dr. Gustavo Carvajal’s Ferrocariles Nacionales de Mexico hospital garden, it is hard to believe that we were ever that young or that 45 years have passed since the day that the Tres Estrellas de Oro bus rolled into Celaya with this bunch of idealistic, enthusiastic, college kids. Some were the older, wiser Amigo veterans; others were newcomers, naïve and nervous about what was in store for us, about how we were
going to get along with our untested Spanish, or how we would be accepted by the people of the town – let alone what we were going to do. We made our way up the rutted road toward that historic charming tourist mecca of San Miguel de Allende – stopping 50 km short at a not-so-charming Empalme Escobedo. Charlotte Pacheco spent that summer, with the rest of us, falling in love with the scruffy railroad town, with the Fuentes family, Padre Nick, with the remarkable people of Empalme, Guadalupe and surrounding ranchos. They accepted us into their homes and community; they were patient and supportive of our blundering, at times presumptuous, efforts at community development. Amigos Anonymous opened up a new world for us. We came away from those summers with a deeper understanding of the lives of others and a commitment to working within our communities for a more just and compassionate world. It was life- changing - and a heck of a good time.
After a second summer in Empalme Escobedo in1967, Charlotte graduated from Holy Names College (class of 1968), married Ben Martinez, the Empalme team leader, and moved to San Francisco’s Mission District. This was the Mission District at the end of the sixties - an exciting and turbulent time of passionate, often confrontational, politics and Saul Alinski community organizing. Ben was the president of the Mission Coalition, the major grass roots advocacy organization in the Mission, working on the issues of housing, tenants’ rights, employment, youth activities. Ben and Charlotte’s flat was a busy hub for meetings and intense strategy sessions lasting long into the night. All the while Charlotte was enrolled at San Francisco State, trying to get some studying done as she worked on her teaching credential.
As the marriage ended after three years, Charlotte began her teaching career with sixth-graders at Patrick Henry Elementary School on Potrero
Hill. From the very beginning she had the successful mix of toughness and patience, compassion and creativity that made her effective and respected. She worked with a close group of new teachers and community folks who have remained her friends through the years.
In the mid-seventies, while teaching full- time, Charlotte started taking evening classes at Golden Gate Law School. After graduating and passing the bar, she began a new career in 1979 in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office where she earned the reputation of being tough, yet always fair, a
dynamic trial attorney, a mentor to new staff and a valued friend. As the head of the narcotics division for many years, she was a “prosecutor’s prosecutor” who was equally respected by her District Attorney colleagues, the police inspectors and the defense bar. Her fellow attorneys testify that she was smart, dedicated, feisty, tenacious, funny and frank. “You always knew where you stood with Charlotte.” She never quite lost the hint of her native Fall River, Massachusetts, roots, never minced words and could “out-cuss anyone in the building”. Yet it was her kindness and compassion that left the lasting impression.
In 1992 Charlotte married Steve Lundberg, a San Francisco police inspector with whom she had worked while in the District Attorney’s Office. A short time later, in 1995, she received a diagnosis of multiple myeloma - a sentence with a life expectancy of five years. After a stem cell transplant in 1996 she resigned from the DA’s office and together with Steve used that same fierce energy and determination that she showed in the classroom and the court to combat the disease. Charlotte was active in the campaign to fight her disease through the Muliple Myeloma Research Foundation disease.
For the next fifteen years, while she was undergoing lengthy treatments and enduring considerable discomfort and pain, she continued to live a full, active life with Steve. Theirs was an extreme version of the routine familiar to retired folks: taking classes, piano lessons (even giving recitals), sharpening her Spanish skills, reading, taking advantage of the City’s cultural life: opera, symphony, plays, restaurants, dinners with friends. She and Steve traveled extensively over those fifteen years. Their busy schedule made most of her friends feel like slackers. Like the lawyer she was, Charlotte was constantly debating, arguing about politics, questioning her friends about their beliefs and the meaning of life. While she griped and complained about hypocrisy and injustice and politicians, she never felt sorry for herself, never talked or complained about the extent of her pain or the difficulties of her struggle against multiple myeloma. As her husband Steve said, “She had the disease, but it never had her.”
In addition to her large circle of friends from college, Amigos Anonymous, teaching, the court, the neighborhood, and multiple myeloma community, she had a rich family life as grandmother to Steve’s grandchildren, aunt and great aunt to countless nephews and nieces in the East Bay.
We will all miss Charlotte: the passion, kindness, frankness, her searching and questioning. Another Massachusetts native Teddy Kennedy called his autobiography True Compass. I am sure that Charlotte had some choice words for him and the “damned Democratic Party” and “why they can’t do anything right”..... but for her community of friends Charlotte Pacheco Martinez Lundberg was the “true compass”; and although she would scoff at the notion, she was and is an inspiration to all who knew her.
Written by Mike Monley