Charles Creed Worth

Charles Creed Worth moved on to his next great adventure on June 28, at the vaunted age of 99 (or 100, as he often quipped that some cultures start counting at conception!) He spent his final weekend telling stories, sharing jokes and singing with his family, as was his habit throughout life.

Chuck was a source of love and inspiration for friends and family alike. Conversations with him were laced with stories, puns and even songs in his deep bass voice. Through the trials and triumphs of a long life, he held firm to self-sufficiency, optimism and humor.

Born in Breckenridge, Texas in 1921, Chuck enjoyed an adventuresome early childhood, riding horses, exploring the oilfields, and playing hide-and-seek while avoiding the rattlesnakes and scorpions ubiquitous to the rolling plains of north Texas. This joyful period ended with the sudden death of his mother when Chuck was just 5 and his sister Bobbie 3. Their father, consumed by grief, soon lost the modest means the small family possessed and began moving town to town across the Southwest. Eventually, state welfare workers in Arizona came looking for the children. Chuck hid in the hills, watching helplessly as his sister was removed to an orphanage. After considerable travails, Chuck and his father, like untold others during the Great Depression, hitchhiked to California.

After graduating from Oakland High, Chuck enrolled at Cal, where he pursued studies in History and Rhetoric, working nights in the Berkeley steel mills to put himself through college. When World War II started, he enlisted in Cal’s officer training and in 1944 was deployed with the 65th Infantry Division of Patton’s 3rd Army, which fought and won the battle of Saarlautern and then advanced through France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. After leading a heavy mortar platoon across Europe and serving as a military governor in Austria, he was honorably relieved from active duty in 1946. That year, thanks to what Chuck always attributed to divine intervention, he was reunited with his long-lost sister Bobbie. Chuck and Bobbie remained close the rest of their lives.

In 1942, Chuck married Jean Sofio, a lovely and spirited young woman whom he knew through church and school. When he returned from war, they started a family, and had four sons. Their marriage lasted 15 years.

After Chuck’s best friend, Bill Napton was killed in a plane crash in the East Bay hills, he became close to Bill’s widow, Ann Brennan Napton, whom he had known and admired since high school. Ultimately, they fell in love, married, and Chuck adopted her two children. The family moved to Marin County, where they added two little girls to the family. Ann and Chuck celebrated a joy-filled 32 years together until Ann's tragic death from leukemia in 1991.

Chuck always embraced the risks and challenges of being an entrepreneur, first starting a furniture company that designed and built furniture in Asia, then working with Ann to establish a new company, Pacific Products, that designed and manufactured fishing products. He traveled widely, establishing offices in Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Korea and France, and was among the first entrepreneurs welcomed into China when it opened to foreign trade. In addition to steering his businesses to great success, he volunteered his time to provide training and mentorship to people incarcerated at San Quentin, Folsom, and Alcatraz. He felt that one of the most important things “one could do for a guy” was to teach him skills so that he could make an honest living.

Chuck found love and laughter again in his life – in 1993 he married longtime dear friend Lynne Elvart and welcomed her three children into the family. He and Lynne considered themselves blessed to have a long and happy 28 years of marriage, full of love, humor and adventure.

After retirement at age 80, he devoted himself to managing investments, traveling for pleasure, enjoying his grandchildren, and pursuing his own creativity. Always artistic, he took up painting as well as writing, and spent many happy hours with his oldest granddaughter, Katie, researching and crafting a memoir of his life. His wide-ranging curiosity and intelligence led him to read widely, and he avidly followed current events, reading three newspapers a day right up until his death.

As a father, he delighted in supporting his family – whether teaching kids to swing a hammer, navigate the wilderness with compass and map, write an essay or learn to run a business. To celebrate the importance of education in their lives, he and Ann endowed a scholarship fund at their alma mater, U.C. Berkeley.

Chuck is survived by Lynne and their collective children, Chuck (Denise) Worth, James (Sue) Worth, Bob (Margaret McCarthy) Worth, John Worth, Tom (Amy) Worth, Dosh (Will) McClendon, Amy (Bill Mitchel) Worth, Laura (Jeff) Eberhard, Steve (Tori) Hebel, Lollie (Peter) Zimmerman and Sue (Mike) Baer, along with 21 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The family has deep gratitude for the Villa Marin staff, Kaiser Permanente medical staff and By The Bay Hospice staff for their loving care. A celebration of his life will be held on August 4 at the Marin Art and Garden Center, which has long been a special place for the Worth family.

Chuck would want those who remember him to give a helping hand to a young person who is pursuing education or a new career. And most importantly, he would want others to cherish their families, as he did his own.