Rev. Charles Edward Wolfe

Charles lived an exceptional life. On the 7th of November 1931, he was born in a log cabin that had been built by his ancestors, the first European settlers in Sherburne County, Minnesota. Charles’ father died when he was four, leaving a widow working as seamstress to support two children in the Great Depression. Charles came to Christ in the Italian Mission in the Bay Cliff area of Milwaukee and ultimately led his mother and step-father to Christ. He became the first in his family to finish high school and then went on graduate from college attending what was then Iowa State Teacher’s College. Charles taught high school in Iowa and Michigan before being called to the ministry. He came to Texas to teach and attend graduate school at TCU while discerning whether he was called to be a pastor. He was, and graduated from Austin Theological Seminary. As a twenty-eight-year-old pastor in deep East Texas, he was sent as a voting delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention that nominated JFK and LBJ. That experience cured him of active participation in politics.

While a pastor in Killeen, Texas, Charles became a chaplain in the Army Reserve, to help serve his many congregants who were soldiers at neighboring Fort Hood. When LBJ suddenly sent large numbers of ground troops into the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense assigned quotas for Chaplains to each organized religious group. The national Presbyterian Denomination asked Charles to volunteer for active duty because with his Reserve training he would do a better job and was more likely to come back and bring his flock back from Vietnam than a new seminary graduate. After prayer, Charles felt called and volunteered. As the junior chaplain at Fort Hood he was assigned the Stockade, the prison as his parish. In 1966 prisoners who were murderers rioted, seized the guards and their weapons and took over the prison. Hundreds of military police surrounded and prepared to storm the prison in what would be a blood bath. Called to serve his parishioners, Charles unarmed and alone went inside the stockade and over the course of two days negotiated and guided both the commanding general and the riot ringleaders to a peaceful and bloodless restoration of control of the prison to the authorities. Next, Charles was an Army Chaplain for the 69th Engineering Battalion during the Vietnam War. During the Tet Offensive in January/March 1968, the 69th was surrounded and besieged at Can Tho airfield by vastly superior Communist forces for forty days, and averaged three attacks a day. Everything above ground was blown up. The 69th lived in bunkers and trenches. As the Battalion Pastor, Charles would make house calls on his parishioners by sprinting from trench to trench. While he was running above ground making pastoral visits, Charles was vulnerable to Communist rifle, machine gun, rocket and mortar fire. One day, the Communists blew Charles up with a mortar while he was running from trench to trench.

The 69th’s doctor was already dead. Someone ran out into the shellfire and dragged Charles through the dirt to the underground bunker with the medics. The medics sewed him up the best they could, leaving shrapnel embedded in his leg and bone. Charles was alive but could no longer sprint from trench to trench. So, the troops dug a trench that he could roll into. When a barrage started, he would roll into his trench. If a soldier was on the verge of breaking mentally during an attack, the First Sergeant would bring the soldier to Charles’ trench. Charles would hold the soldier until the attack ended. Usually, the soldier was able to return to duty after the attack.

Charles said that as long as your head was below the level of the ground you were as safe in a trench as in a bunker. However, as you lay on your back in your ditch looking up at the blue sky and saw all of the mortar shells arcing over you it was difficult to believe you were just as safe as in a bunker. While in Vietnam for twelve months Charles earned the National Defense Service Medal; Army Commendation Medal; Bronze Star Medal; Vietnam Service Medal with Bronze Service Star; Valorous Unit Citation; Vietnam Campaign Medal; Armed Forces Reserve Medal and Purple Heart. He remarked that it was a lot more fun to have the medals than to earn them. Charles remained in the reserves and retired a Lieutenant Colonel. After Vietnam, Charles was a pastor in New York and Maryland, earned a doctor of divinity at Wesley Theological Seminary, taught as an adjunct professor at McDaniel College and Wesley Theological Seminary, wrote and published broadly and served as editor of the magazine Pulpit Digest.

An irrepressible traveler, while in his eighties he took each of his thirteen grandchildren on a trip ranging from South America to Central Europe and everywhere in between. This program of spending quality time with each grandchild was Charles’ best invention. At the request of each denomination, Charles was a Presbyterian pastor (honorably retired), a United Methodist (honorably retired) and Dutch Reformed. In his spare time Charles also built and furnished elaborate doll houses. After moving to Houston in the Brookdale Senior Living Community, Charles was active with the church group in Brookdale, wrote and had published scholarly articles as well as fun articles, joined a men’s prayer group that was very important to him, organized trips to points of interests such as theater, symphony concerts and especially to Opera in the Heights. On his deathbed Charles remarked that he had a wonderful family, a wonderful life and enjoyed every minute of it except the last two weeks. All his family can say is “Amen”.

Charles was married twice and was predeceased by Anne and Helen. Charles is survived by four sons, Chris (married to Nora), Hawley (married to Anne), Lewis (married to Reba) and David (married to Pamela). Grandchildren include Charlotte, Noah, Grace, Eva, Hannah, Sarah, Nathanael, Leah, Matthew, Regina, Rachel, Priscilla and Naomi, plus great grandchildren.

The family gathered for a private interment at Houston National Cemetery.

Charles would appreciate gifts to the USO if someone is so inclined.