Brown said any talk of Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s alleged transgressions has no place in telling Chatfield\u2019s life story. Chatfield left the UFW in 1973, a year after helping defeat a proposition<\/a> that would\u2019ve made specific labor strikes and boycotts unlawful.<\/p>\n LeRoy Chatfield, center back, says a prayer over Thanksgiving dinner with some of his clients at his Loaves & Fishes mission in 1997. <\/p>\n (Kim Komenich \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Chatfield weaved seamlessly through different social movements in California throughout his life. <\/p>\n He acted as a key player in Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s vision, propelled climate change discussions to the forefront under Brown\u2019s administration in the late 1970s and maintained safe spaces for Sacramento\u2019s homeless community. He also compiled what is arguably the definitive digital archive of the United Farm Workers\u2019 early days<\/a> and sold it to the UC San Diego Library in 2013 in hopes it would be accessible to all for free. <\/p>\n \u201cHe is a prime example of these leaders who never wanted credit,\u201d said Jorge Mariscal, a UC San Diego professor emeritus who helped Chatfield write \u201cTo Serve the People: My Life Organizing with Cesar Chavez and the Poor.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s why no one\u2019s heard of him, even though when you talk … to union people from those years, they almost all really respect LeRoy.\u201d<\/p>\n A son of rice farmers in Northern California, Chatfield understood the plight faced by migrant families early on. His parents shipped him off to an all-boys, religious high school<\/a> at 14 near Napa, where he trained to become a member of the Christian Brothers. There his life was devoid of high school hallmarks such as mingling and dating women, dances, and learning about the world through pop culture. <\/p>\n By 1963, Chatfield worked as a teacher at Garces Memorial High School in Bakersfield and created education programs for his students, whose families belonged to a variety of unions. One day, he traveled to Boston to attend the National Catholic Social Action Conference, where he first heard about Ch\u00e1vez and his efforts to organize farmworkers in Delano, merely miles away from where Chatfield worked. <\/p>\n He tracked Ch\u00e1vez down to learn more about his efforts. Education, Chatfield recalled<\/a> telling Ch\u00e1vez, was the answer to improving the lives of farmworkers. However, Ch\u00e1vez disagreed. Ch\u00e1vez contended that families required stability before their children could take advantage of school, and a union was the first step, according to Chatfield. <\/p>\n Two years later, Ch\u00e1vez called up Chatfield and pitched him what would become his first paying gig. For a $20 salary, Chatfield brainstormed how to create co-op facilities such as clinics and pharmacies as one-stop spots for farmworkers. <\/p>\n \u201cI realize that what I propose to do will strike some of you as \u2018crazy\u2019 or \u2018naive\u2019 or \u2018nuts\u2019 and maybe in two years\u2019 time I will agree with you,\u201d Chatfield wrote in his resignation letter<\/a> from the Christian Brothers. \u201cBut right now I am convinced that Cesar Chavez and the NFWA represents a true anti-poverty program that respects the dignity and integrity of the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Chatfield quickly became an integral part of Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s inner circle and would meet his future wife, Bonnie Burns, a fellow educator, through his UFW work. Along with co-op facilities, he also purchased a plot of land in Delano to house the union\u2019s first headquarters and learned how to handle media amid Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s historic fasts. <\/p>\n Weakened by a fast, C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez, head of the farmworkers union, is assisted from Kern County Superior Court in Bakersfield by Jerry Cohen, left, union attorney, and LeRoy Chatfield.<\/p>\n (R.L. Oliver \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n His proudest contribution was creating the framework for the union\u2019s first medical plan. He consulted with an array of doctors throughout the Central Valley and interviewed county officials, often hitting dead ends the moment he uttered \u201cunion\u201d or \u201cfarmworkers.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMy work there has been halting, tentative and generally working around the fringes,\u201d Chatfield wrote in a 1968 journal entry reflecting on the daunting task. \u201cThe reason, quite simply, is I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. I don\u2019t know what to do. The terminology is different and I don\u2019t feel comfortable talking about things I have to learn at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Chatfield took some time to tend to his family after eight exhausting years with the UFW, but jumped back into the political fray. <\/p>\n He gravitated toward politicians championing social justice causes, managing the first congressional campaign for Congressman Esteban Torres<\/a>, himself a former labor activist. Chatfield also managed Brown\u2019s gubernatorial campaign in Northern California and later became the inaugural director of Brown\u2019s California Conservation Corps, an organization that spearheaded environmental projects. Within its first year and a half, Chatfield opened 18 centers throughout the state. <\/p>\n \u201cHe was the most successful leader of the CCC,\u201d Brown said in an interview. \u201cOther people came after him that did good things, but LeRoy got it up and moving. It was stalled, it didn\u2019t get off the ground until he opened up more than two dozen residential camps. … He did that with determination and effectiveness. In fact, he did it so well legislators objected because he didn\u2019t check in with them.\u201d <\/p>\n Always pursuing the next endeavor to help the marginalized, Chatfield focused his efforts on providing food for the homeless in Sacramento. He enlisted the Rev. Wayne \u201cChris\u201d Hartmire Jr.<\/a>, an old friend from his UFW days to stage a nonviolent fast to pressure county officials to act on a homeless shelter. <\/p>\n \u201cDo we hold bars responsible for the things drunk people do on public sidewalks?\u201d Chatfield asked the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in 1997 in response to criticism from community members and some local officials who pegged his nonprofit as inconveniencing residents by helping homeless people. \u201cHow about schools? Are they held accountable for the acts of students who misbehave?\u201d<\/p>\n Dorothy Smith, a board member of Loaves & Fishes, the nonprofit, said the team often described Chatfield as a five <\/a>on the Enneagram<\/a>, a personality test that says such people are \u201cvisionary pioneers, often ahead of their time.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n Even when the devout Christian decided to retire, he found a way to be of public service. <\/p>\n By 2002, Chatfield tapped into his love of documenting history. As a schoolteacher, he encouraged his students to journal daily, a habit he had practiced since he was a boy. Close colleagues and friends said Chatfield had a way with words and expressed himself most comfortably through writing. He wrote essays and conducted oral interviews with UFW greats such as Hartmire and Gilbert Padilla who were essential to the union\u2019s success. <\/p>\n Chatfield hired Jennifer Szabo as his web developer early on to make the Farmworker Movement Documentation Project<\/a>. Szabo didn\u2019t know who he was and was mainly focused on doing a good job, saying: \u201cI wasn\u2019t even paying attention to what I was doing, what the content was, and then over time, he says, \u2018Oh I was working with C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s a really big deal!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That effort eventually materialized into a special collection at UC San Diego. <\/p>\n![\"Leroy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789703057_552_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Cesar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789703057_499_.jpeg\")
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