Sharon S. Bramblett

Sharon Grace Bramblett, 82 years old, passed away on Feb 21, 2024, after a difficult 36-year battle with Crohn’s disease. Her parents, Grace and Herbert Stanfield, raised her in Big Wells, Texas, a south Texas town so small that her high school was in nearby Carrizo Springs. She was an honor student who excelled in basketball and clarinet. In 1959 she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she graduated with a degree in Zoology. She was a substitute science teacher in a local high school . Her undergraduate research assistant years studied many creatures, including cave ecology, boll weevils and butterflies. She was the first web master for the College of Natural Sciences, and retired in 2003.

She married Claud Bramblett (an anthropology student) in 1961. She met him in junior high and they dated through high school. Sharon and Claud made a terrific pair because any skill that he lacked, she provided. In 1963 and 1964, Sharon and Claud managed the Darajani Primate Research facility in Kenya, where her son, Eric, was born. With her support, Claud completed a Master’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin, a PhD at University of California at Berkeley, and he returned to Austin as a faculty member. She studied free ranging monkeys in Grenada and Guatemala. Her research and writing contributed to many scientific publications .

She loved to swim and qualified as an international open water diver in 1976. She and Claud built a house on a wildlife property she called “the farm”. He measured and cut the boards and she nailed them up. She stocked the front yard with peafowl and llamas. Llamas and making garments out of their fiber became a major passion for her. She was active in the Llama Mama spinners and the Weaver & Spinners Society of Austin.

Sharon is survived by her husband, Claud Bramblett, her son, Eric Bramblett, and her sister, Nancy Stanfield Webb.