Charles did not do well after Edythe's death and the adoption of his younger children. He worked in Holbrook for a while but gradually became disconnected from his family and children. Ross writes the following: (Click on text to enlarge.)
I was a child of five years old when my mother, Virginia received a call from Ross telling her about Charles' death. We had just moved in to a new home my father had built for our family in Boulder, Colorado. For years she had thought her biological father was already dead. She was so stunned. She cried and cried and cried. I remember when she received the tan, tweed-looking suitcase in the mail that contained his few personal items. She wept as she opened it and handled the clothing. She mourned the fact that her children could have known their grandfather, that he could have come and stayed in our home.
Charles died at the age of 78 at the Veterans Administration in Woods, Wisconsin. He had lived the last 30 years or so of his life in obscurity. Who knows what transpired between the the early twenties and 1932 when he was committed to the Arizona State Hospital by the Maricopa County Court. After that it seems he went from one Veteran's facility to another. I wonder why he never contacted his children. Maybe he tried. Maybe he felt that he had nothing to offer them. Whatever the case, it would have been wonderful to have met him in person.
Recently Charles great granddaughter applied to the Arizona State Hospital for Charles' records. He was diagnosed with dementia praecox/paranoid. The certificate states he used excessive alcohol. His address is listed as Flagstaff, Arizona. He left a friends name as a contact person rather than a family member.
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