thank you for your condolences.  This has been the most challenging and difficult event in my life.  I am Sterling’s husband.  We were together for 42 years, and married for almost 39

years.  She was, and is, an amazing warm, empathetic, and curious person.

I paste below some information from her celebration of life.  She passed in December of 2024, after a too lengthy struggle with a neurological issue,  and several weeks of hospice care.

She knew what was coming and faced it without fear.  I love her and miss her so much.

And she fondly, fondly, remembered her pals from New Canaan High.

All best wishes,

Richard Robertson

 

Charlotte Sterling Atherton was born in Owensboro Kentucky.  As a young girl she moved with her family to New Canaan, Connecticut.  A free spirit, she studied philosophy and business at Wells College.  Along the way, she developed a strong interest in dance, receiving intense training and experience with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City before earning her degree in dance from the University of California, Irvine.  Her curious mind prompted a desire to understand the function of the human body in dance; this interest led her to take independent studies of anatomy in the UC Irvine medical school.  It was there she met her future husband.

 

Sterling loved life; her adventurous spirit led to videography expeditions to the Amazon river and rain forest, African safaris, and throughout the US.  

 

Those who knew Sterling were attracted to her curiosity, her sharp intellect, her genuine interest in the people she met, her amazing warmth, and her deep empathy.  The world seems less bright with her passing.  Sterling was, and is, one of a kind.  A beautiful soul who made this world a better place.