Charlie Hall Wood

Charlie Hall Wood, 88, originally from St. Charles, Ill., passed away peacefully in his home in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Sept. 1, 2011. Charlie was born to Margaret Scoley Wood and Raymond Wood on Aug. 19, 1923, in Hinsdale, Ill., but was raised in childhood in St. Charles. He attended school there where he was a four-letter star athlete in football, basketball, track and baseball. He worked as a lifeguard at Pottowatomie Park during the summers and entered the University of Illinois at age 18, which he interrupted when he answered the call to serve his country by enlisting in the Marine Corps at age 19. He was stationed in the South Pacific as an aircraft radio technician and was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant. After World War II, he returned to St. Charles, where he married Betty Jo Lower. They moved to Champaign-Urbana for him to continue his education, had his first child, Bob. He taught and coached for a few years in central Illinois, then moved to Batavia, Ill., in 1949. Charlie took a job as a salesman for Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation in Chicago, where he worked until the mid-1970s. He was an active member of the Batavia community, where he was president of the Louise White School PTA and elected to the school board for several terms. He was a Little League umpire, loved family tent camping and took all six children, wife Betty Jo and dog in his nine-passenger station wagon to the Rocky Mountains, Wisconsin and Minnesota on family vacations. He was a bus driver for the Sandpoint school district for more than 10 years and drove athletes to many games and meets all over the Pacific Northwest. Charlie was a member of “the Greatest Generation” and had a work and family ethic that is unusual in today’s world. He was a devoted practitioner of the Baha’i Faith. Services will be held in Sandpoint at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011, at the Gardenia Center, 400 Church St. Interment will follow at Lakeview Cemetery in Sandpoint at 4:30 pm. He is survived by his brother, Ernest of Tucson, Ariz.; six children, Bob, Mike, Kathy, Jim, Kim and Kris; eight grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and three nephews and a niece. He was preceded in death by his wife, Betty Jo, in 2008.