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Tributes to Chris from Friends and Associates

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Tributes to Chris from Friends and Associates 2 Summer 2019 Applegater timber products, and sustainable OBITUARY forest management. Chris was predeceased by his parents, George and Wiltrud Bratt, and brothers Charles Christopher Bratt Jonathan, George, Tom, and Peter. He is survived by Joan Peterson, his wife and December 11, 1930 - April 8, 2019 partner since they met at Tomales High School some 50 years ago, and by his first BY LARRY FRANCIS wife, Nancy Wilkins, the mother of his three children. Folk singer, carpenter, activist, writer, Survivors also include his children poet, teacher, folk artist and collector, red Toni Winter (Terry), Josh Bratt (Wendie), diaper baby, family man, woodsman, and Nick Bratt (Beth); stepchildren builder, volunteer, investor, philanthropist, Gordon Smith (Malie) and Jenell environmentalist, humanist Smith; sister Susanna; cousins Michael Christopher Bratt (“Chris,” “Papa and Mandy; countless nieces and Chrissy”) was born at home on December nephews, including Greg, Nadya, Peter, 11, 1930, to Wiltrud Hildner Bratt and James, Kevin, Georgia, Karen, and Alexis; George Cleveland Bratt at the Columbus and many grandchildren, grandnieces, Apartments, 1492 Pacific Avenue, San grandnephews, and great-grandchildren Francisco. Chris passed away at his home as near as California and as far away in Applegate on April 8, 2019, surrounded as Norway. by family and friends. When I’m on my journey, don’t you weep Through all the tumult and the strife, I after me... hear that music ringing. I don’t want you to weep after me.” It sounds an echo in my soul; how can I —“When I’m on My Journey,” as sung by the keep from singing! Weavers —An old Quaker hymn, as adapted and sung Larry Francis by Pete Seeger [email protected] Chris loved to sing, knew hundreds if not thousands of songs, and sang them in his impassioned, clear tenor—in living rooms and kitchens, on picket lines and stages, at potlucks—wherever and Tributes to Chris whenever the spirit moved him. He sang lead for a semiprofessional folk group, the from friends Albion Trio, which played around the San Francisco Bay Area in the early ’60s. Chris and associates had wide-ranging, eclectic tastes in music and was influenced by Pete Seeger and the Diana Coogle Weavers as well as international folk dance Loss (Chris loved all line dancing, especially the When Chris Bratt died Kopachka Folk Dancers of Mill Valley), Applegate forests lost Puccini (especially La Bohème), Miriam a staunch defender. Makeba, and Paul Robeson. He picked Applegate gatherings lost up songs and sang them his whole life a fine folk musician. long—everything and anything from woodshop at Tomales High School in The Applegater lost YMCA camp songs to Ezio Pinza, Tom Tomales, California, where he met Joan a huge supporter Paxton, and Woody Guthrie. It’s only right Peterson, who was teaching English there. and the board to punctuate this story with lines from In 1976 Chris and Joan moved their picture of Chris in their big garden brings its longest-serving member some of his favorites. blended family to 160 acres on Thompson to mind another piece of a favorite song and “Behind the Green Door” columnist. If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the Creek Road in Applegate. that Chris and Joan often sang: The Grayback Salon lost morning, All must work, for work is good, Going to Oregon, where everything is a reader whose unique perspective I’d hammer in the evening, all over this and in work man finds brotherhood. green, connected the poems with carpentry land... —“Hey Zhankoye,” Jewish folksong as sung by Gonna have the best ol’ farm that you (his lifelong craft) —“If I Had a Hammer,” by Pete Seeger and the Weavers have ever seen.” and raised memories of a Lee Hays In Oregon, more carpentry jobs —“Times A Gettin’ Hard,” by Lee Hays as sung San Francisco childhood Chris had a hammer and knew how beckoned—large and small, volunteer and by the Weavers and amended from “California” to with socialist-minded parents. to use it. His dad was a carpenter, and not—including countless hours building “Oregon” by Chris and Joan Joan lost Chris helped him on odd jobs during the stages and a portable burrito booth and a When Chris, Joan, and their children a wonderful husband. Depression. During World War II, Chris remodel of the Headwaters Building on moved to their place on Thompson Creek And I lost went to work in a boatyard. Later, while 4th Street in Ashland. Chris was a tireless (“Forest Farm,” they called it), they also a friend I loved. a member of the carpenters union, Chris builder, figuratively and literally. He brought Chris’s parents, George and z helped build the tract homes in South built forts and the famous and dangerous Wiltrud (Beb). One night at dinnertime, Richard Goodnough San Francisco that Malvina Reynolds “rocking boat” for his kids, homes and a young woman they didn’t know came to From the moment I heard of the immortalized in her song “Little Boxes.” remodels for family and friends, tract the door and told them that the Bureau of passing of Chris Bratt, a song he loved Later he became a general contractor, homes like the “Little Boxes,” jungle gyms, Land Management was planning to spray came to mind: “When I am gone,” by founding Little Gem Construction (“a and innumerable smaller projects. large areas of the forest abutting their Phil Ochs. This song contains phrases like jewel of a job”) with partners Molly Chris knew that working together property. Beb overheard the conversation I won’t know the right from the wrong and Malouf and Jim Holland. In the early on a project builds community. In the and said, “Christopher, you should do you won’t find me singin’ on this song when 1960s, when the Ku Klux Klan was 1980s, putting his boundless energy, something about it.” He did do something I am gone, so I guess I’ll have to do it while burning churches in Mississippi, Chris teaching experience, and carpentry skills about it—and with a passion one Boise I’m here. Chris had a very strong sense of and Molly went there with the American to work, Chris organized a carpentry and Cascade vice president described as right and wrong and loved to sing about Friends Service Committee to help woodworking co-op, the Billy Mountain “relentless pressure, relentlessly applied.” workers’ rights, other cultures, harmony in congregations rebuild. In the late ’60s, Builders, which evolved over the years Besides organizing the Homestead the world, and many kinds of love. Chris and his partners in Little Gem into Cottage Green Construction, a Valley Improvement Club back in Won’t be asked do my share when I’m went to Delano, California, to build contracting partnership he formed with his Mill Valley days, in Oregon Chris gone, so I guess I’ll have to do it while I’m the Rodrigo Terrónez Memorial Clinic Richard Goodnough. Even through the helped found and/or served on boards here. Doing his share was what he tried for the United Farm Workers (UFW). last year of his life, Chris was in charge of numerous organizations, among them doing every day, whether in his work, with Chris’s politics and music were strongly of maintaining, improving, and repairing ACOTS (Applegate Citizens Opposed his family, or in his community. influenced by the United Brotherhood of Bratt Family Trust properties in San to Toxic Sprays), Northwest Coalition Can’t be singing louder than the guns Carpenters, UFW, Student Nonviolent Francisco and Grass Valley, California. for Alternatives to Pesticides, TREE when I’m gone, so I guess I’ll have to do it Coordinating Committee, American Chris’s passion for work was the prime (Thompson Creek Residents for Ecological while I’m here. Peace on a national level Friends Service Committee, and the Peace ingredient in bringing people together, Education), Headwaters/Geos Institute, or a community level was something that and Freedom Party. along with his rough and wry sense of Applegate Partnership and Watershed was very close to his heart. His bumper Back in the Bay Area in the early humor, exemplified by a favorite phrase Council, Applegater newsmagazine, and stickers read, “I am already against ’70s, the Little Gem partners got tired of of his, “What do you think this is—a Applegate Neighborhood Network. the next war” and “Think globally, act building ever fancier homes. A remodel country club?” In the office he built onto the locally.” During the time of the civil rights calling for a fifth bathroom was the last On their property in the Applegate, main house, Chris kept extensive files movement, he left paying work at home straw; Little Gem dissolved. Chris got his Chris and Joan had a big garden, pasture on forest management, herbicide- and and went to Mississippi to help rebuild a teaching credential from San Francisco for goats and horses, and sustainable pesticide-spraying, clear-cutting, small burnt-out church. State University and started teaching forestry for timber and firewood. The woodlands management, small-diameter See CHRIS BRATT TRIBUTES, page 17..
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