EDIT: I wrote this a week after my great-grandfather passed, with the intention of filling in the rest of his story and posting it. I still plan to do that, but his life was so BIG I can’t fit it into one post. So here’s his life before Huntsville and before he was a part of my family.
I bet you do not know who that is. Well, he was my great-grandfather, and as great-grandfathers go, he was pretty darn great.
Grandaddy Charles, as I called him, passed away on Friday of last week. He was 99 years old, and he made the most of every single one of those years, as near as I can tell.
Grandaddy Charles was born in Texas in 1911. He grew up in Fort Stockton on a sheep farm, and in high school, he helped wire houses for electricity. You can read more about his life in Fort Stockton here; his local paper did a write-up on him a few weeks before he died. He attended Texas A&M, and when he graduated in 1933, he joined the Army reserves. Below is my favorite picture of Grandaddy Charles, at A&M in 1933:

Grandaddy went on to have a pretty storied career in the military. Considered too old to fight in WWII, he trained soldiers. He went on to serve all over the globe, including Japan and the Eastern Bloc. (The Eastern Bloc assignment was always the most interesting to me. It was during the Cold War, and I’ve been told that he was there to do reconnaissance on the roads and bridges in Russia.) He retired in 1962 as a Colonel. There’s even a photo of him in the Philippines, but I can’t say for sure if was stationed there or just on leave. Behold:


And that’s only half of his life!
During the years from ‘33-’62 is also when he met and married his first wife, Peggy. Peggy preceded him in death, and they did not have any children.
In the mid-60s, Grandaddy Charles moved to Huntsville to take a civil position on Redstone Arsenal, the local Army base. It was during his career at the Arsenal that he met my great-grandmother, Alice, whom I called Grandmommy. More on Grandaddy’s life in Huntsville soon.






