Charles Joseph “Charley” Chatfield

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Charles Joseph “Charley” Chatfield Veteran

Birth
Fruita, Mesa County, Colorado, USA
Death
2 Aug 1986 (aged 90)
Paradise, Butte County, California, USA
Burial
Chico, Butte County, California, USA Add to Map
Memorial ID
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1st of 10 children of CHARLES HENRY CHATFIELD & NELLIE BELLE CHAMBERLIN
Military: 1916: Mexican Border Campaign
Mar 1917: WWI, Army Sergeant Co. H, 160th Infantry, American Expeditionary Force, served in replacement and depot divisions in France
Occupation: Rice rancher with father, truck driver for Union Ice Company, fruit stand owner in Lodi; ship builder and welder for U.S. Steel & Westinghouse Electric Co.
Affiliation: Veterans of Foreign Wars (Post 1555)
Avocation: Photographer (8mm movies)

Married: Apr 30, 1927, VELMA AVIS TURNBULL, Oroville, Butte Co., CA
Children: none

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Charley & Velma traveled the west visiting America's dams, herculean monuments to this country's ingenuity and hubris, Velma instructing Charley how to use the camera ("push the red button, Charley, push the red button…"), Charley taking reel after reel of color 8-millimeter movies of the panoramic views, all with no people in them. At seventeen, Charley worked on the Cody Dam in Wyoming; along with the weather, dams were his lifelong interest. The Chatfield Dam on the South Platte River in Colorado is named after his grandfather, I.W. Chatfield.

He belonged to camera club where members viewed one another's home movies and he had over a hundred reels of black and white film of dams throughout the United States—and one reel of the family.

In Aug of 1986—while watching a televised baseball game—Charley jumped up in the middle of a play and had a heart attack.

At the age of ninety he died where we would all like to end up—in Paradise.
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1st of 10 children of CHARLES HENRY CHATFIELD & NELLIE BELLE CHAMBERLIN
Military: 1916: Mexican Border Campaign
Mar 1917: WWI, Army Sergeant Co. H, 160th Infantry, American Expeditionary Force, served in replacement and depot divisions in France
Occupation: Rice rancher with father, truck driver for Union Ice Company, fruit stand owner in Lodi; ship builder and welder for U.S. Steel & Westinghouse Electric Co.
Affiliation: Veterans of Foreign Wars (Post 1555)
Avocation: Photographer (8mm movies)

Married: Apr 30, 1927, VELMA AVIS TURNBULL, Oroville, Butte Co., CA
Children: none

================
Charley & Velma traveled the west visiting America's dams, herculean monuments to this country's ingenuity and hubris, Velma instructing Charley how to use the camera ("push the red button, Charley, push the red button…"), Charley taking reel after reel of color 8-millimeter movies of the panoramic views, all with no people in them. At seventeen, Charley worked on the Cody Dam in Wyoming; along with the weather, dams were his lifelong interest. The Chatfield Dam on the South Platte River in Colorado is named after his grandfather, I.W. Chatfield.

He belonged to camera club where members viewed one another's home movies and he had over a hundred reels of black and white film of dams throughout the United States—and one reel of the family.

In Aug of 1986—while watching a televised baseball game—Charley jumped up in the middle of a play and had a heart attack.

At the age of ninety he died where we would all like to end up—in Paradise.
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Gravesite Details

Buried Aug 6, 1986