Charles Louis Stephan III, OFS

Charles Louis Stephan III, 86, peacefully passed from this life due to natural causes surrounded by his family at his home in Williamsburg, Virginia on January 20, 2023. Born in Oklahoma City on July 10, 1936, “Chuck” grew up as a child of the Dust Bowl, moving to Glendale, California; Dallas, Texas; and back to Oklahoma before joining the U.S. Navy in June 1955 as a chaplain’s yeoman. He served on the Bon Homme Richard aircraft carrier sailing the Pacific, before receiving an honorable discharge in 1957. Chuck returned to Oklahoma to work at Oklahoma Gas and Electric before the itch to travel led him to join the U.S. Foreign Service as a passport clerk in 1959. After starting work in the Chicago passport office, Chuck traveled to his first overseas assignment to the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France, where he met, fell in love with, and married Foreign Service Secretary Marie Amarillo, who was also on her first Foreign Service assignment.

Chuck and Marie devoted most of their adult lives to public service, traveling with their family, which grew to four children, to overseas assignments at U.S. diplomatic posts in Paris; Aleppo, Syria; Belém, Brazil; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Guadalajara, Mexico; Kinshasa, Zaire (now Congo); Manila, The Philippines; Taipei, Taiwan; Nassau, the Bahamas; Nairobi, Kenya; and finally Port-au-Prince, Haiti; with occasional stints in Washington, DC. The State Department commissioned Chuck as a consular officer in 1964, in which role he worked tirelessly for the rest of his career to help American citizens in trouble overseas and manage increasingly complex immigration processes, while leading and mentoring scores of junior officers, both in the office and at his and Marie’s dinner table at home, to become highly accomplished officers who remained devotedly loyal to him for many years to come. His outstanding accomplishments as a consular officer, leader, and manager ultimately led to his Presidential appointment as a member of the United States’ Senior Foreign Service. Chuck’s lifelong insatiable curiosity infused his entire family with a passion for overseas cultures and experiences, including cooking and enjoying local cuisines, art and theater, scuba diving, extensive travel, and most of all human connections.

Following Chuck’s and Marie’s retirement from the Foreign Service in 1997, they settled along the waterfront in Beaufort, North Carolina, where they delighted in hosting their children and grandchildren for regular family gatherings featuring his gourmet cooking, boat outings, and long conversations and fun around the evening dinner table. Following the tragic loss of their Beaufort home in a lightning strike in 2014, Chuck and Marie resettled in Williamsburg, Virginia, where they remained until his death.

Throughout his life, Chuck was a devoted man of faith who gave selflessly with a humility, generosity, and love to others in need, whether ministering to the sick in hospice care, helping the poor and homeless, supporting convents by chauffeuring the nuns to medical and dental appointments, and leading his community of faith in living true to their creed. Chuck and Marie were professed as Third Order Secular Franciscans in 1999, and he served two three-year terms as Minister of his local fraternity in Morehead City, North Carolina.

Chuck is survived by his loving wife of 63 years Marie Stephan; their four children Cheri, Gregory, Geoffrey, and Amanda, and their spouses; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.