Uncle Charley

Uncle Charley is a story about a man born to an Ohio farm family just before the turn of the 20th century. His childhood on the farm was interrupted by the untimely death of his father and his mother's consequent marriage to a new man, occasioned by the necessity of surviving in a frontier area with few resources. The family moved to Indiana in search of opportunity, but unbeknownst to his mother, the stepfather became abusive to the youngster Charley. Charley left home at an early age without warning as soon as an opportunity presented itself. He survived by joining one of America's most iconic entertainment industries. After five years of hard work, Charley decided to move on. His innocence after arrival in the big city of Detroit provoked a severe financial loss and he became desperate for cash. In an effort to recoup his lost cash, he joined a gang of Detroit entrepreneurs who profited from the illegal trade in booze during the Prohibition era. After a few years of dangerous work, Charley realized that his real ambition was to return home to Indiana and begin his own business. Upon his return to his childhood home, Charley realized everything had changed: his family had become increasingly estranged from his stepfather and his mother needed financial help. Charley helped his mother with a generous gift of cash that made his aim of developing a new business challenging. He persevered and opened a new business in Indiana until the Ku Klux Klan intervened with a lynching in his hometown that forced Charley to move. He began again, this time in Michigan. He settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan and ultimately sought refuge from the cares of his life in the ministry, becoming first an evangelist and then a minister serving an established church. The story in its full telling is a novel that resulted from a genealogy study of Charley's family. The bones of the story came from family sources verified by only sparse details found in official records and a generous dose of anecdotes culled from historical sources.