November 6, 1939 – December 19, 2025
Los Altos Hills, California, native Raeanna Louise Burkhart passed away peacefully, after a brief illness, on December 19th, 2025, at the age of 86 in Līhu’e, Kauai. Rae, as she was known, was born on November 6th, 1939 in Palo Alto, California. Her father, Alton, owned the Los Altos Supply feed store located on First Avenue; her mother, Elsie (née McCart), was the business’ bookkeeper. In addition, they were prominent apricot orchardists on their Los Altos Hills land along La Paloma Road. Rae graduated from Mountain View High School and San Jose State University, after which she had a long career in administration with the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto.
Raeanna and husband, Paul Zappella, lovingly restored the Los Altos Hills farm house in which Rae grew up, with her sisters Caroline (Snell) and Elaine (Cantwell). Rae and Paul were avid vegetable gardeners, advertising the day’s availability of vegetables and eggs on an apricot tray alongside of the road. During the summer apricot season, Rae also helped her father with the drying of apricots: cutting, lifting trays, scrapping, and packaging. Not only did they process their own production in the iconic wood barn situated amongst apricot trees on the family property, but also that of neighbors who wanted their apricots to be dried.
In 1985, she married James Charles Carter, Jr, an engineer and project manager in the medical division at Varian, also in Palo Alto. Not long afterwards, both retired from the electronic industry and left Silicon Valley to build their dream home in Princeville on their beloved Hawaiian island of Kauai. She became keenly interested in Hawaiian culture, its people, traditions, and flora. Rae quickly became involved in numerous community activities, especially at Wai’oli Hui’ia Church in Hanalei where she was also a mission docent. Rae and Jim lovingly guided their hānai children to adulthood. After moving closer to Līhu’e, Rae became a tour guide at the Grove Farm Museum. During this time, she developed numerous friendships at the Regency Hulei’a and her church ohana (family) at Calvary Chapel Lihue.
In fact, Raeanna made friends wherever she went, and was deeply loved by young and old. Her family consisted of intimate friends on Kauai and across the mainland. In addition to the many lives she touched, including those of her hānai and step-children, she is survived by her nephew Robert Snell of Huntsville, Alabama, and niece Shari Nafus (née Snell) of Decatur, Texas.
A service of remembrance and celebration of life will be held at Calvary Chapel, Līhu’e, on January 16th, 2026, followed by a private interment at Kauai Veterans Cemetery, Hanapepe.
