Charles E. Schwarz was a rare man who prefered being called "Charlie", "Charles E" and sometimes by some people, "Sarge". He was born Elmer Winkler, in Clyde, Ohio. When his mother died, he and many of his brothers and sisters were put up for adoption by his father. I believe there were 12 Winkler children, and heard his mother died in the Spanish influenza epidemic. He was sent to a Catholic orphanage, when he was adopted by Karl Schwarz and his wife, who changed the little boy's name. In their family home of Pittsburgh, he assisted his adoptive father in his printing business. He was often beaten and suffered a lot under the father. He ran away, riding the railroad cars and living in hobo camps along the way to California. In the early 1920s, he was asigned to work at the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in Long Beach, Califoria.

He had a distinquished military career. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1938, serving at Fort Monroe, Virginia as a supply sergeant before fighting with the 106th Infantary Division in the Battle of the Bulge during World War Two. In 1946, he was assigned to Naking, China, and later joined the American Graves Registration Service in Shanghai. While working there, he scoured the countryside for bodies and searched for clues to identify them, occassionally finding potential sites of downed aircraft by hearing of Chinese villagers near the mountains wearing US military dog tags. He also ran the NCO (non commissioned officers) Club in Shanghai and later the Fort Monroe NCO Club in 1957-58.

He married Vivian Griggs in the late 1940s, and adopted Vivian's five year old daughter Judith Sue Allen, giving her his last name and continuing a strong family tradition of adoptions and name changes. Between years of service at Fort Monroe, he served over a year in Korea, receiving a telegram that his only child, Deborah Lee Schwarz, was born back in Virginia while his group was living in underground bunkers. (His wife had suffered a miscarriage once a year or so before Debbie's birth.) They were divorced in the late 1950s, and Charles E. was devastated when Vivian left him and took her two daughters to Texas as she followed an officer she eventually married.

Charlie retired from the military at Fort Monroe with full honors in 1959 as a Master Sergeant (he still kept the older rank of Chief Warrent Officer for pay reasons, but preferred to be a "non-com"). Among his many medals are the Bronze Star, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal and the Presidential Unit Citation.

In the early 1960s he moved to the Richmond area, settling finally in a motor home court in Chester, and went to work at the Virginia State Penitentiary. Known for his meticulous record keeping and attention to detail, he served first in the Penitentiary's bureau of records, then as the Head of the Hospital Administration before retiring (again) after almost 12 years in 1972.

At some point, he remarried for a short time, but it didn't work out, and dated now and then. He had a wonderful dog, Buddy, who was his pride and joy, and he adored his Texas grandchildren when they came to visit him in the 1980s. He was often lonely, a complex man with many friends, deep felt emotions and a ready laugh. Bored watching TV, Charlie became a really interesting gardener, a good horse shoe player, and learned to make large hooked rugs in the last decade or so of his life, starting from kits and then creating his own designs such as a handsome Chinese royal couple and the seal of his local Elks lodge. Favorite sayings were: "One day chicken, next day feathers" and "What the hell?" He liked his whiskey, his cigs, women, naughty jokes, the Army life, routine, discipline, the singer Kay Starr, old movies and good comfort food. He liked to putter and didn't have a mean bone in his body. He is much missed by those who knew and loved him. His ashes are buried at Arlington Cemetary, which he would have liked.