Charles Isaac Wallace Jr.

Charles Isaac Wallace, Jr., September 28, 1943 - December 17, 2025 Charlie Wallace died on December 17, 2025, in Salem, Oregon, surrounded by family and friends. He experienced a precipitous decline after being hospitalized for a fall, exacerbated by congestive heart failure. He was 82.

Charles Isaac Wallace, Jr., was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 28, 1943, to Miriam (Shroyer) Wallace and Charles I. Wallace, Sr. The family (including his younger siblings Becky and Jim) moved several times in the Baltimore area during his childhood, following his father's various church minister appointments. They landed in Burtonsville where Charlie attended nearby Sherwood High School and played trombone in the school marching band—which performed at John F. Kennedy's inaugural parade.

Charlie attended Bowdoin College, where he majored in History, joined Theta Delta Chi, and read the news on a local radio station, while also managing to get up to occasional mischief—including "good trouble." In the summer of 1963, he and his father participated in the March on Washington where they had the honor of hearing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. After graduating from Bowdoin in 1965, Charlie, drawn by the Social Gospel teaching that both his father and maternal grandfather embraced as Methodist ministers, decided to continue the family vocation by enrolling at Yale Divinity School. Inspired by William Sloane Coffin, who was already a legendary university chaplain at Yale, and by the freedom struggle taking place in the American South at the time, Charlie joined a group of divinity students from the Student Interracial Ministry and drove down to Albany, Georgia, in the summer of 1966 to support voter registration efforts. After graduating from YDS with a Master of Divinity in 1968, he continued on to Duke University to pursue a Ph.D. in the history of Christianity, writing a dissertation on the Protestant work ethic in early Methodism.

At Duke, he met Mary Elizabeth (Betsy) Sargent, an undergraduate. They married in 1971 and lived their first few years of married life in England, both pursuing doctoral research, while he also taught religious studies classes at Chislehurst School for Girls. Their first daughter, Hannah, was born in Bromley, England, in 1973. It was on British T.V. that he first saw the brilliant British comedy troupe Monty Python, which would have a long-lasting influence on his irreverent and quirky sense of humor.

When they returned to the U.S. in the summer of 1973, Charlie was ordained in the United Methodist Church and was hired as minister at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Finksburg, Maryland. After their second daughter, Molly, was born at home in Westminster, Maryland, in 1978, Charlie became a part-time chaplain and instructor at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), where his maternal grandfather had previously taught (at Westminster Theological Seminary on campus) and where his parents had met. He also taught occasionally at Wesley Seminary nearby. This move to campus ministry and teaching afforded him the opportunity to combine both dimensions of his calling: pastoral work and scholarly engagement. During this time, The New York Times profiled Charlie and Betsy’s struggles as adjunct faculty at multiple institutions, also highlighting their embrace of more equitable gender roles through sharing parenting and household responsibilities. The family continued to live in Westminster, right down the street from Charlie’s parents, until 1985.

In 1985, a job offer as University Chaplain at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, took the family out west. The position offered Charlie the chance to serve the entire campus community at an institution with Methodist roots, while also teaching courses in the religious studies department. Some of his favorite courses were Liberation Theology and Social Change; Religion in America; and Soul Food: Eating and Drinking in Western Religion. Charlie became a beloved force on the Willamette campus and beyond, connecting and inspiring students, faculty, and staff alike through a cultivation of spiritual and intellectual purpose, service, and activism. During his time at Willamette, Charlie supported students of multiple faith traditions (and of none), was instrumental in shaping Convocation—a weekly convening of the campus community for lectures, concerts, and discussion—and was one of the founding members of the Salem Peace Lecture Committee. Under his leadership, a grant from the Lilly Endowment expanded the chaplaincy and made questions of meaning, purpose, and vocation central to the campus experience.

Charlie guided the campus through various world events, from the global anti- Apartheid struggle and anti-nuclear movement to the Gulf War, 9/11, and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, offering a witness to injustice and a strong, steady voice for ethical action. In his prayers, sermons, invocations, and benedictions over the years, Charlie somehow managed to combine levity and humor with profound spiritual and theological insight and socio-political critique, reminding those gathered of their responsibility to one another and to address the world’s injustices. He was also a trusted counselor to members of the campus community and a celebrated teacher. Given the affection many students and former students (not to mention colleagues, friends, and family members) felt for him, it is no surprise that he was asked to officiate at a substantial number of weddings over the years—a task he happily accepted, including for many samesex couples when that was still a fairly rare occurrence. He led two study abroad programs during his tenure at Willamette, one to London in 1991 and one to Galway, Ireland, in 2006. Amidst all this pastoral, service, and teaching work on campus, he also published his long-standing scholarly labor of love—Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings—as well as, later, From A Mother’s Pen: Selections from the Spiritual Writing of Susanna Wesley. He was also an active member of the American Academy of Religion, the American Historical Society, and the American Society of Church History.

In 1997, a few years after his first marriage ended, Charlie married fellow Methodist minister Priscilla (Dee-dee) Walters in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, bringing step-daughters Liz Clark and Holly Pendleton into his family fold. Charlie and Dee-dee lived in Salem and spent almost 30 active years together, traveling back east frequently to see family in New England and Maryland. They also traveled to England on a few occasions, to Australia in 2004, and to Scotland as recently as 2019. Charlie and Dee-dee were also avid hikers and walkers together, from the Mount Jefferson Wilderness and the Grand Canyon to Salem’s Minto Brown Park. They also loved animals and welcomed several cats into their home over the years. One would often see Charlie and Dee-dee at climate and social justice protests at the State Capitol or campaigning for progressive politicians. They also regularly volunteered at church-based homeless shelters.

After retiring from Willamette in 2012 after 27 years of service, Charlie continued teaching a course here and there for the next few years but then retired in earnest in 2016. Whatever energy he had once devoted to teaching and chaplain-ing he soon started devoting to grandparenting. Madeleine was born in 2004 (to Don McIntosh, Hannah’s future husband), and then Joanna and Wesley were born in 2013 and 2018, respectively (to Molly and her husband John Rogers). As of 2016, all grandkids lived within a few hours of their beloved Granddad. An unceasingly loyal Baltimore Orioles fan, Charlie enjoyed catching the occasional Orioles-Mariners game up in Seattle but also, more frequently, Keizer Volcanoes, Hillsboro Hops, or, most recently, Portland Pickles games with his kids and grandkids. He and Dee-dee would frequently drive up to Portland to attend the grandkids’ school events, performances, soccer or baseball games, or preschool/kindergarten graduations.

Charlie was a lifelong learner and teacher, and up until the last few months of his life was leading a class at First United Methodist Church in Salem: Digging Deeper in Theology and Ethics. He was also participating in an online book club with some old pals from divinity school, where they recently read James by Percival Everett and were about to discuss Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings that Made Christianity. Charlie’s latest book, Praying with Charlie: 27 Years of Meditations, Prayers, and Benedictions (or How Monty Python Infiltrated Willamette University), was published just last year.

Though no obituary can do Charlie justice, a few other details bear mentioning. He loved people and always knew how to strike up a conversation with anyone and find a connection with them, showing genuine interest in their lives. It comes as no surprise, then, that he maintained several lifelong friendships. He was a gifted listener and retained everything, even remembering arcane details of his daughters’ lives and their social circles and professional pursuits. He reveled in a good bargain and came home from shopping trips to the Canned Food Grocery Outlet or Trader Joe's with a smile on his face, proudly displaying his surprising finds and deals. His singular sense of humor also manifested in his mild obsession with Seattle-based gag gift store Archie McPhee's, where he'd delight in everything from skittering plastic cockroaches to yodeling pickles. And beyond his trombone-playing in high school, Charlie sang in various choirs over the years (including some performances in local Gilbert & Sullivan operettas), played a mean amateur recorder, and enjoyed listening to many different kinds of music, from Renaissance madrigals to reggae, from folk songs to jazz, from Afropop to baroque.

Charlie was a devoted, loving, and endlessly supportive father, grandfather, husband, brother, son, and uncle. He is survived by his wife Dee-dee Walters, his sister Rebecca Wallace and brother James Wallace, his daughters Hannah Wallace and Molly Wallace, his step-daughters Liz Clark and Holly Pendleton, his sons-in-law Don McIntosh, John Rogers, and Brent Pendleton, and his grandkids Madeleine McIntosh, Joanna Wallace Rogers, and Wesley Wallace Rogers. He is also survived by many nieces, nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews in Kansas, California, Maine, and Massachusetts, as well as countless students, colleagues, and friends whose lives he profoundly shaped.

In lieu of flowers, Charlie's family asks that you consider donating to one of the following organizations doing work close to Charlie's heart:

Mano a Mano (Salem): https://manoamanofc.org/aboutus/ Sunnyside Shower Project (Portland): https://www.sunnysideshowerproject.org/

Marion Polk Foodshare: https://marionpolkfoodshare.org/

Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (Portland): https://www.imirj.org/ Third Act: https://thirdact.org/ American Friends Service Committee: https://afsc.org/ First United Methodist Church of Salem: https://www.salemfirstumc.org/ Willamette University: https://willamette.edu/

A memorial service will be held at 1:30 PM on Jan. 25, 2026, at the First United Methodist Church of Salem.