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- Charles Burton Scroggie ("Chuck") was born on a farm three miles east of Ruthton, MN on January 24, 1917, the third of five children of Perry and Laura Scroggie. The family moved to another farm four miles northeast of Ruthton about 1921. The farm was located in Lincoln County and the mailing address and county seat was in Tyler, MN. Chuck attended a one room country school, grades one through six. This school had one teacher who taught grades one through eight. The family farm was sold in 1929 and the family moved into town (Ruthton). Chuck attended Ruthton elementary school grades seven & eight and Ruthton High School, graduating in June, 1935. His graduating class had 22 students, including four Christensens (two families). In the senior play, Chuck played "Marston Bobbs -- anything but bashful". In the commencement exercises, his sister Blanch was in charge of the processional. The two years following High School, Chuck worked on local farms driving trucks and assisting Perry on the family farm. During the height of the depression, jobs were difficult to find in the rural Midwest and Chuck definitely did not want to be a farmer. When Alvin Christensen was driving to the West Coast to join other members of his family, Chuck decided to go along and seek employment there. On April 1, 1937, he migrated to Santa Barbara, CA and initially took a part time job as a gardener on a local estate. During this time, he stayed with the Christensen family. When a better paying job came available as an orderly at the Santa Barbara County Hospital, he took it. It was during this period when he met his future wife, Edna Mae Norris. In the spring of 1938, Chuck's sister Dorothy was moving to Santa Barbara to begin her nursing career with her room mate at the University of Minnesota's nursing school, Edna Norris. Chuck met them when they arrived by bus from Minnesota. Chuck & Edna were married the following year in Yuma Arizona on Christmas Eve, 1939. Witnesses at the wedding included Edna's sister Betty. In July, 1939 Chuck moved to the Los Angeles area where jobs were available in the blossoming aircraft business. His "Uncle Charlie" lived with his son Gene in Santa Monica where Gene worked for the FAA at the Santa Monica airport (Gene spent his career in aviation after flying combat bi-planes in Eddie Rickenbacker's famous Ninety Forth Aero Pursuit Squadron during WWI). Gene used his contacts to get Chuck several interviews, including Lockheed Aircraft Company in Burbank, CA. After attending the Fletcher school for two months learning sheet metal and riveting skills, he was hired by Lockheed on September 25, 1939, beginning a long career there. Initially, he worked on the Hudson Bomber which they built for England prior to and during WWII. Following their marriage, Chuck and Edna lived in Burbank in a duplex apartment. Also living there were Pete & Margaret Hulse (Margaret later married Chuck's brother Don). While in Burbank, Chuck & Edna's two sons were born, Steven Norris (b. 9/19/1943) and Michael Charles (b. 9/29/1944). The family moved to a house they bought on Matilija Ave. in Van Nuys (about 10 miles away) in 1945. In 1947, Chuck was transferred into the inspection department and worked as a final assembly inspector on the P-80 jet fighter (the first U.S. jet fighter, designed by the famous Lockheed engineer, Kelly Johnson), T-33 trainer and the F-94 fighter final assembly lines. In 1951, the T-33 assembly line moved to the private airport in Van Nuys, CA and Chuck moved with it as a inspector supervisor of final assembly. In October 1952, Chuck & Edna's daughter Jane Edna was born (b. 10/26/1952). In 1954, the T-33 Final assembly moved to Palmdale, CA and Chuck transferred back to Burbank, working on the C-130 transport plane, the P2V2 anti-submarine warfare plane and the Constellation passenger plane. In 1958, Chuck and Edna bought a new house on Mammoth street in Van Nuys, about three miles north of the Matilija house. That year, Chuck was also transferred back to Van Nuys plant, working for the new Lockheed Missile & Space division. In 1964, this plant closed and Chuck was transferred to the Missile & Space plant in Sunnyvale, CA (north of San Jose on the San Francisco Bay pennisula). By this time, Steve (20) and Mike (19) were both in college in Southern California and did not move up north when Chuck, Edna and Janie moved to a house on Allison Way in Sunnyvale in June, 1964. At the Sunnyvale plant, Chuck worked on several space craft programs as Inspector Supervisor. In 1967, he transferred to Inspection Engineering quality assurance on the Polaris submarine missile program. There, he worked on the various Navy submarine missile programs including the successors to the Polaris, the Poseidon and the Trident. On January 31, 1981, Chuck retired from Lockheed after 42 years, and entire family attended his retirement dinner. As of 1997, Chuck & Edna are still living at the Sunnyvale home, not far from Jane, her husband Nick and their grandchildren Sean and Colin who live in Redwood City, CA. Chuck enjoys pitching horseshoes several times a week and listening to or watching San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's baseball games. He also is busy making and fixing things around the house. CBS & MCS 3/27/1997
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1917 - 2006 (89 years)