Karren J Bratcher

Karren grew up a happy go lucky farm girl on her family’s 40-acre farm picking cotton, milking cows, and feeding chickens, and then, after the chores were done, playing and swimming in the canal. Countless hours swimming in the canal secured her a spot on her high school swim team and a position as lifeguard at the high school pool in the summers.

Karren attended Dos Palos Elementary School and then Dos Palos High School, where, in the seventh grade in 1953, she first met Delmas Bratcher. Their friendship grew into romance and then into marriage when Karren and Delmas eloped to Reno, Nevada and married on January 3, 1959. Karren and Delmas moved to Castro Valley, California to begin their life together. They welcomed their oldest son, Danny, on April 12, 1960, and then their youngest son, Kevin, on June 6, 1965.

Karren began working on the assembly line manufacturing wine and ketchup bottles at Glass Containers Corporation (aka, the “glass plant”) in Hayward, California in October 1968. The glass plant was a 24-hour operation, which meant line workers worked rotating shifts – a week of days, a week of swing, a week of graveyard. Karren worked the line for 15 years, and with Delmas, raised their boys and made a secure and loving home for their family.

Karren and Delmas moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the spring of 1990. They built a house, with a swimming pool, in Claremore, Oklahoma shortly thereafter. Karren and Delmas enjoyed their life in Oklahoma, spending time with family and swimming in their pool, and reading cookbooks - Karren loved cookbooks – until December 2004 when they returned to Dos Palos and then to Los Banos, California to assist and subsequently help care for Karren’s aging parents until they passed away each at age 91 in August 2012 and October 2013.

At Kevin’s urging, Karren and Delmas moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to live with Kevin and his husband, Gustavo Guevara-Diaz, in October 2018. Just as they were settling into life in Las Vegas, Karren was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in August 2019.

Karren was treated for and survived multiple bouts of multiple myeloma and various other unrelated ailments (it was one thing after another) until she was ready to go. Karren passed away, not so peacefully, at age 82 at 12:57 a.m. on March 5, 2024, with Delmas, Kevin and Gustavo close by.

Karren is survived by Delmas, Danny and his wife Sandi, Kevin and Gustavo, her grandson Anthony and his wife Jullie, her brother Henry and his wife Jane Lee, her sister in-law Lavern Beard, her brother in-law Gary Drew, and many nieces and nephews.