WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Charlotte Harvey had a way with people.
As her late husband, James Harvey, used to say, she “could talk 20 minutes to the wrong number,” Harvey’s son, Craig King, recalled.
That skill served Harvey well in her job at the Quechee Gorge Visitor Center, which is run by the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce. For the better part of two decades — from her 70s until she was 87 — she’d greet visitors to “Vermont’s Grand Canyon,” telling them about the best spots to grab a bite to eat or do some shopping.
PJ Skehan, the chamber’s former executive director, who met Harvey in 2013 when he took on the leadership role at the economic development organization, would watch in awe as she convinced people to extend their stay in the region.
“There were always people who would return year after year (and ask) ‘is Charlotte here?’ ” Skehan said in a phone interview. “Her social skill set was amazing. She could talk to anyone about anything.”
One day, a group of motorcyclists stopped by the visitor’s center and Harvey went out to chat with them. Before Skehan knew it, Harvey was sitting on the back of one of the motorcycles.
“They gave her a ride around the village,” Skehan recalled with a laugh. “She was unreal. Always loved a motorcycle ride.”
When people brought their dogs inside the center, Harvey personally greeted them and got them a bowl of water.
“Any dog that came in, she always petted the dog for sure,” Skehan said.
Harvey, who died Aug. 17, 2025, at age 92 of lung cancer, also had a deep knowledge of the region’s history — and her personal history — that she shared with strangers and friends alike.
She was born on the family dairy farm in North Pomfret on Feb. 6, 1933, the youngest of three children. After World War II, her mother started a small bed and breakfast in their home to earn extra income for the family, King, of White River Junction, said. She had a particularly close bond with her father, who was 46 when she was born.
“He had a few breakdowns due to financial pressures,” King said. But his youngest daughter always found a way to get through to him and the two doted on each other, King said, referencing letters written by family members. Her ability to comfort and care for people is something that would carry on throughout her life.
Harvey left school at 16 to marry her first husband, John King.
“That kind of set her life down a path that was challenging,” Craig King said.
By the time she was 20, Harvey had three children and ultimately had six, including a son who was adopted by her brother and sister-in-law, who wanted children but were unable to have them biologically, King said.
In addition to raising her children, Harvey worked outside the home in a variety of jobs, including as a nurse’s aide and as a housekeeper to help support her family, especially when money was tight. The couple had their challenges and ultimately divorced when Harvey was about 35. The split was amicable and, years later, when King’s father was dying of cancer, Harvey helped take care of him.
After they divorced, Harvey and her youngest children, including King, moved to Mount Holly, Vt., where she worked as an assistant town clerk, in addition to taking on housekeeping jobs.
In the 1970s, she met James Harvey, who became her second husband. After marrying in 1976, they settled in White River Junction.
James Harvey was supportive when Harvey, then in her 50s, decided to get her GED. In 1987, she finished her program and the whole family celebrated.
“It was something that I suspect that she just had quietly had within her, that it was something that she wanted to do,” King said, remembering the nights that she’d spend studying. “I think it was probably unfinished business that she had.”
The Harveys loved spending time with family, including their growing number of grandchildren.
In 1994, her life took another turn when James Harvey died suddenly from a blood clot he developed after undergoing hip replacement surgery.
“That was very difficult, very, very hard,” King said. “My mother had a wonderful ability to cry when the spirit led her, or to laugh. She could do both.”
One of her strengths was her ability to express her emotions, which gave those around her the courage to do the same. Skehan recalled days where he would come into the visitor’s center “wound up” and overwhelmed.
“She would tell me to chill out, have a cup of tea,” Skehan said. They’d take a moment to talk, Harvey would share stories about the guests who’d dropped by recently and help Skehan relax.
During her years at the visitor’s center, she also frequently went to the Bugbee Senior Center in White River Junction, where she met Loretta Parker.
“She had a laugh you just couldn’t forget,” Parker said in an interview at the Bugbee, where the two friends had shared many meals over the decades.
The two played countless games of rummy, with Harvey always pushing for one more round. She also loved Parker’s dog, Snickers. When Harvey made split pea soup, she’d set some aside for Snickers, who gobbled it up.
“She’d tell everyone that,” Parker, of Hartford, said about her friend’s sense of humor.
The pair went to outdoor concerts in White River Junction where they danced, especially to country-western music. Multiple times a year, they’d visit Weathervane in West Lebanon so Harvey could eat lobster, a favorite of hers, or go to Fore-U so that Harvey could have a banana split, another favorite.
“I could always count on her to go somewhere with me,” Parker said.
Parker would pick up Harvey for services at the Greater Hartford United Church of Christ, a Protestant church where Sally Ann Silfie serves as pastor. Harvey attended the coffee hours after Sunday services and talked to everyone who came through the door.
“She just loved those coffee hours and that’s where you could really hear that laugh,” Silfie said. “I just respected her ability to love life and enjoy whatever life she was handed.”
Harvey’s sense of adventure also brought her to cemeteries and she would recount to Skehan the grave markers she read during her walks through them. Once, she booked a night in a supposedly haunted room at the Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm.
“I don’t think she saw the ghost,” Skehan said. “She wasn’t convinced anyway.”
In addition to her sense of adventure, Harvey is remembered for her smile and her signature look, which included bright red lipstick, King said. She made it a point of pride to dress up for work and favored bright colors, especially red.
“She liked to look nice,” King said during an interview at the visitor’s center, where his mother had greeted thousands of people over the years.
Her appearance, along with her energy, contributed to the way she filled a room with light and drew others to her.
“She loved people,” King said. “She really did. And she saw the very best in people.”
