“Tide’s high. Time to go Duck Hunting in the great beyond!”

Charles Robert Wilson, age 96 ½ years young, passed away in Edmonds, Washington on Nov. 30, 2021, following complications from a stroke in early 2019. Charles, a life-long native of Aberdeen, Washington, spent his last two years in nursing care, close to his daughters in Seattle.

Charles was born May 21, 1925, to William Cleveland and Lenore Stilson Wilson of Aberdeen, Washington. He spent his entire life in Aberdeen, Washington and was deeply fulfilled by living there. He really never wanted to be anywhere else.

Charles’ roots in the Pacific Northwest go back many generations. His ancestral family included early Scottish and Swedish pioneers. His Aberdeen, Washington roots began in 1879.

On the Scottish side, one of his fraternal great-grandfathers, Jonathan Moar Sr. (1829-1925, from the Orkney Islands, Scotland) served as a blacksmith/dairyman for the Hudson Bay Co.’s Fort Vancouver, a British fur trading post located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. Fort Vancouver was established as the center of HBC’s operations west of the Rocky Mountains. Moar’s wife, Charles’ great-grandmother, Isabella Logie (1823-1872) was among the area’s first herbalists and midwives. She was also one of the first females to receive land from The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, having arrived in the Oregon Territory before Dec. 1, 1850.

On the Swedish side, Charles R. Wilson’s family (from Bokenas/Uddevalla Sweden) were among the Pacific Northwest’s first Swedish pioneers. When they first arrived in the United States, three Wilson brothers (Charles Robert, Henry and Fred) sailed masted schooners along the East Coast. With the on-set of the Civil War, they found themselves in San Francisco, working aboard a Confederate ship that was about to be confiscated. Rapidly seeking more independent opportunities, the three Wilson brothers headed north to Oregon. For many years, they operated a sawmill at Beaver Creek, near Rainier, Oregon. When the supply of timber for the mill declined, the brothers —accompanied by family, support staff, and oxen teams — headed north once again. They followed Indian trails, journeyed along the Chehalis River, and arrived in the young town of Aberdeen, Washington, Oregon Territory in 1879.

There, they established Wilson Brothers & Co. (Charles Robert, Henry and A.B. Johnson) sawmill and shipping business at the confluence of the Chehalis and Wishkah rivers. When the great earthquake of 1906 devastated San Francisco, Wilson Bros. & Co. timber was shipped from Aberdeen to California to help rebuild the city. The Wilson mill operated until the 1950s.

On Charles Wilson’s maternal side, his great-grandfather was Lot Whitcomb. In the spring of 1847, Whitcomb and his family joined a party of 13 families who left Illinois for Missouri. The party followed the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Territory, arriving six months later. Endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit and a bent toward politics, Whitcomb established the city of Milwaukie, Oregon in 1848.

In 1850, Whitcomb — who would later make his fortune from milling and shipping lumber for California gold miners — launched the first steam-driven vessel to run on Oregon’s inland waters. This vessel, the Lot Whitcomb, contributed to the rapid economic development of the region. Whitcomb used some of his early profits to launch a newspaper, the Western Star, based in Milwaukie. In 1851, the paper moved to Portland and its name changed to the Oregon Weekly Times. Whitcomb’s granddaughter, Lenore Stilson Wilson, would become Charles Robert Wilson’s mother.

The history of Charles’ family was chronicled in his daughter Emily’s 2007 book “From Boats to Board Feet: The Wilson Family of the Pacific Coast.” The book recounts a shipwreck, and the immigration of that captain’s five sons and two daughters to America’s Pacific Coast (San Francisco, California; Portland and Rainier Oregon; and Aberdeen, Washington) in the 1860s and 1870s. It documents the growth of the Wilson Bros. enterprises from their modest beginnings as a towboating business along the Columbia River in the early 1870s to their success as a thriving logging, sawmill, and shipping venture in Aberdeen, Washington and along the Pacific Coast for eight decades.

By the time Charles Robert Wilson was born in 1925, his family had been well established in Aberdeen for over four decades. Charles graduated from Aberdeen’s Weatherwax High School in 1943. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and served in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war he returned to Aberdeen, where he spent the next 45 years as a businessman, an accountant and later, an insurance agent.

Charles was a great Aberdeen “Bobcat” fan, a long-time member and officer of the South Bay Hunting Club (he always said butterscotch candies were the “key” to summoning the ducks to fly), and lifetime member of the Aberdeen VFW and Elks’ clubs. For enjoyment, Charles danced to the Hume Street Jazz Band, picked blackberries and passed summer vacations at Lake Chelan. Charles was a talented water skier; one of his claims to fame was riding atop his “flying saucer,” on a wooden chair while turning circles by holding the ski rope in his toe.

At home in Aberdeen, Charles was a man of habits and routines. He always ate Thursday lunch (tomato soup and half an egg salad sandwich with a slice of pickle) at Ann Marie’s Café at 11:30 a.m. (Becker Building/Aberdeen). This location was chosen quite deliberately: he sat exactly where his own desk had been when his office occupied the same space years earlier. Charles was also known to go out for Saturday morning breakfasts, always bringing along his own small jar of homemade blackberry jelly.

Upon his retirement in the early 1990s, Charles enjoyed spending winters in the sunshine at Yuma, Arizona, with his wife Helen Mudie Wilson. When home, he and Helen enjoyed long walks around the neighborhoods of Aberdeen, feeding local dogs, biscuit treats. They always celebrated Happy Hour at 5 p.m. with a game of cribbage. Helen preceded Charles in death, April 13, 2020, at Victoria, BC, Canada where her care was being overseen by her four daughters, after Charles’s stroke.

Charles Robert Wilson is survived by daughters Emily Marie Wilson (Michael A. Rich) Seattle/Battle Ground, Washington and Lindsay Knight (Aka: Lissie Wilson), Seattle/Aberdeen, Washington. He is also survived by grandson Garret Richwilson and great- grandchildren Charles Eden and Emilia Rose Richwilson of Seattle Washington.

Charles’ request was to be buried at the feet of his grandfather, Charles Robert Wilson, Fern Hill Cemetery, Aberdeen, Washington. He now rests there next to his cousin Jonathan Wilson and other ancestral members of the Wilson family. By his request, there were no services; burial was private. In his passing, he would like that you raise your glass and offer a “Aberdonian Cheer,” for he had many a very good year!