Charles Ray McCullough

The last of seven children, Charles is preceded in death by his siblings; Geraldine Nelson, Wanda Bush, Helen Nash, Mary Grant, Elizabeth Lamb, James McCullough, and Robert McCullough.

He left home at age 18, and went to Jal NM to work in the oil fields. He found that it was not for him so he joined the US Navy. He went on his first cruise in the Navy and got so deathly seasick, he was taken off the ship and finished his tour in Hawaii in the 1950’s. “What a time to be in Hawaii”, he always said. He left the Navy in 1960 and settled in San Francisco. He bought a wallpaper business with his first partner Wayne, and for the rest of his life he was a paperhanger. Then in the 1970’s, he met his second partner Hal, who he spent the next 35 years with. They first lived in Hawaii, and then moved to Palm Desert in 1980. He was still a paperhanger and he always said, “I wallpapered the desert”.

Hal died in 2010 and shortly afterward, he met Kevin Mazur, who was with him until he left this world on January 20, 2021.