Charles Madden, 94, passed away Thursday, January 14, 2016 at Woodland Manor skilled nursing facility in Springfield, Mo., where he had been residing since May of 2015.
Charles Frank Madden was born on April 10, 1921 in Marion, Ohio. His father was Francis Cyril Madden, a carpenter, and his mother was Anna Elizabeth Bowen Madden, a homemaker. When Charles was still small the family moved to Glen Dale, W. Va., where Charles' brother John Thomas "Jack" Madden was born in 1932.
Charles attended school in Moundsville, W.Va., and graduated from Moundsville High in 1939. He then attended West Virginia Wesleyan College and studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with minors in Chemistry and Biology. It was during his time at Wesleyan that he met and fell in love with a beautiful and talented piano major named Gertrude Alice Linger. Everyone called her Trudy, and in Houston, Texas on November 27, 1943 she became Trudy Linger Madden.
The couple was in Houston because Charles (everyone called him Frank then) had joined the Army Air Corps during his last year at Wesleyan. He was trained in Texas and then served in the Italian "theater" of World War II as a Bombardier/Navigator, flying 25 missions in B-25 bombers from Corsica into Germany and Italy. (He was there at the same time as Joseph Heller, also a bombardier, and author of the book Catch 22.) Commissioned as Second Lieutenant Charles was returned to the U.S. where he trained other bombardiers in the new B-26 planes. In February of 1945, in Charleston West Virginia, Trudy gave birth to the first of the couple's five children; a boy named Mirth. Six months later Frank was honorably discharged from the Army Air Corps as the war neared its conclusion.
It was customary after WWII for colleges and universities to confer degrees on young men who had enlisted when they were in their last year of study. So it was with Charles, and shortly after being discharged and awarded a BA from W. Va. Wesleyan, he was accepted into a Master's degree program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While there, he completed his master's and began work on his PhD. Second son Michael was born there in 1947. It was around this time that Charles won an Avery Hopwood award for his book of wartime poetry called Bent Blue, and the cash award paid for Michael's birth (AND a new refrigerator!). With two children it became financially difficult to stay in school, so when Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., offered a teaching position that paid $3500 a year, the opportunity was seized. The family moved to Columbia and Charles accepted the position of Instructor in the English Department.
Charles (everyone in Columbia called him Chuck) would teach and serve as chairman of first his department and then his division at Stephens for a total of seventeen years, during which time his daughter Melody was born in 1951, son Mark in 1957 and son Matthew in 1958. Mark was deaf and when Charles and Trudy found that the best school for the deaf in the state was open only to residents of St. Louis County, they moved the family there and Charles secured the position of Dean of the Undergraduate College at Webster University in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis. The year was 1967. This position also lasted seventeen years, but in 1984 Webster sent Charles to Leiden, in the Netherlands, to finish out his final years with them as Director of European Campuses. In order to make this possible Trudy, who had master's degrees in English and Counseling, retired early from her position teaching English at Meramec, one of the campuses of the St. Louis Community College District. In Europe, Charles put in two years shuttling back and forth between campuses at Leiden, Paris, London, Geneva and Vienna. The couple took full advantage of their location, using it as a starting point for travels to Ireland, England, Wales, France, Spain, Germany, Malta, Egypt and even the Soviet Union.
In 1986 Charles retired too and the couple moved back to the states and built a home on the family farm near Friendly, West Virginia where Trudy's parents still lived. The couple was active in the area. Trudy was Music Director and Organist at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Sistersville and taught English at W. Va. Northern Community College in New Martinsville. Charles was on the vestry of the church, served as a board member and grant writer for area schools and libraries, and both were regular presenters at the local book club. They were physically active too, and for nearly the next 20 years they walked 5 miles before breakfast. It was on one of these walks that they adopted an abandoned dog that would be immortalized by their friend, Phyllis Naylor in her Newbery Prize winning book Shiloh, named after, and set in, the tiny community where she often visited Charles and Trudy on the banks of Middle Island Creek.
Finally, in 2005 it became too difficult for the couple to live alone in such an isolated area. They sold the farm and bought a condo at Elfindale in Springfield, near their second son Mike and his family. They were able to live independently for the next five years, enjoying the central location which made it easier to arrange visits by their children and grandchildren from all parts of the country. Daughter Melody eventually moved from New Mexico to Springfield to be near them. When failing health made it necessary, they moved to the Manor at Elfindale, the skilled nursing facility available just up the hill from their condo, where they stayed for five years before moving to the Woodland Manor skilled nursing facility last May.
In addition to his parents, Charles was preceded in death by his brother, the Honorable John Thomas Madden of Moundsville, West Virginia. He is survived by his beloved wife of 73 years Gertrude Alice Linger Madden, son Mirth and daughter-in-law Judy Swartwood Madden in Northwood, Iowa, son Michael and daughter-in-law Pamela Combs Madden in Springfield, daughter Melody Pierson, also in Springfield, son Mark in O'Fallon, Missouri, and son Matthew and daughter-in-law Julie Carmazzi Madden in Centennial, Colorado. He had five grandchildren, Ezra Nye, Nicole Madden, Briana Madden, Riley Madden, and Kailey Madden, and a niece Elizabeth Madden, and three nephews, John Madden, Craig Madden, and Patrick Madden. He will be dearly missed by all.
A funeral service is planned for 2PM on January 28 at St. John's Episcopal Church, 515 E. Division in Springfield. The service will be presented by the Reverend David Kendrick. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Association at www.ALZ.org/donate.