Deceased August 10, 2021
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In Memory
Charlie died on Aug. 10, leaving a rich legacy of service to wilderness preservation in the vast border area of northern Minnesota and southern Ontario.
As a child in Evanston, Ill., he became friends, through his father, with two key environmental leaders for the area, Ernest “Ober” Oberholtzer and Sigurd Olson. Both of them were vigorous advocates for the protection of the Boundary Waters area. Later, teenage Charlie became inspired on a canoe expedition and later again on frequent visits to Mallard Island, Ober’s wilderness home and education camp.
All this led to Charlie’s service as president of the Oberholtzer Foundation and board member of Quetico Superior Foundation and Wilderness Society Research Foundation and also Gads Hill Center, a Chicago agency providing educational and social services for children and families. He was known for his fairness and objectivity. His wife, Jean, wrote, “He honors listening.”
Charlie prepared for Amherst at Evanston Township High School, joined the Lord Jeff Club, Auto Association, News Bureau and fencing team, and majored in English.
Roommate with Charlie for three Amherst years and again for a time at different Harvard graduate schools, Roger Marshall ’53 also served as best man at Charlie’s first wedding. Roger valued most of all Charlie’s ability to provide good advice to him.
Charlie earned his law degree from Harvard, like his father, and then practiced law in Chicago for 52 years with Hubachek & Kelly and then Chapman and Cutler.
After law school, he received a commission to serve in the Air Force, then continued in the reserve and, remarkably, rose to the rank of brigadier general.
Charles leaves his wife, Jean, and, from his first wife, Frances Kates Kelly, daughters Elizabeth (Jason) and Mary (Stuart) and son Timothy (Julee); 12 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; his sister, Ann; and three nephews.
Jean Kelly, Roger Marshall ’53 and George Edmonds ’53