Obituary: Charles Bertelle Lane (1940-2021)

On Sunday, February 21, 2021 Charles (Chuck) Lane, loving husband, father, and grandfather, passed away at the age of 80.

Chuck was born on September 15, 1940 in Helena, MT to Stan and Charlotte Lane.

Early in his life, he was diagnosed with both polio and rheumatic fever, and was not expected to live to adulthood. Thankfully, an iron lung funded by the March of Dimes ultimately allowed him to overcome the worst stages of his bout with polio, and it was this experience that led him in part to a lifelong commitment to exercise and his own health in general.

After graduating from Cathedral HS in Helena, MT in 1958, the Eagle Scout attended Carroll College in Helena where he earned his BA in Biology in 1962. He subsequently moved to Corvallis, OR where he earned his M.S. in Fisheries at OSU in 1965.

After graduation, he was hired by the EPA in Indiana. The hiring practices within the federal government at the time caused him to seek work elsewhere, and he accepted a job in Saskatchewan, Canada as a fisheries biologist for the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan from 1965-1967 and later from 1967-1972 for the Department of Fisheries in Alberta, Canada.

While a graduate student at OSU, he met his wife Janet Marie Hahn on a blind date in 1965 and they continued a long-distance courtship that culminated in marriage in Albany, OR on April 30, 1966 after which they both returned to Canada. While in Alberta, they adopted two sons, Christopher and Stephen, and one daughter, Jennifer.

The family moved to Utah in 1972 where Chuck worked for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on the Central Utah Project writing environmental impact statements. While employed full-time, he earned his Masters in Public Administration from BYU in Provo in 1982.

Upon the completion of his work with the Bureau of Reclamation in Utah, Chuck, Janet, and Jennifer moved to Weaverville, CA so he could pursue a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service on the Trinity River Restoration Project. He finished his career with a two-year position from 1995 to 1997 with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento working on the Salton Sea Project.

Chuck began his second life as a farmer after retirement in 1997 in Blodgett, OR for 24 years where he and Jan joined her brother, Dale, to help with the family farm. Not having been raised in a rural setting necessitated that he learned new skills such as fencing, working with sheep and cattle, and making hay and firewood.

During retirement, Chuck also volunteered his time to organizations whose values most aligned with his own. He was involved with the Marys River Watershed Council in Corvallis, where he was instrumental with the organization and development of the group. He was also motivated by stories of the roles that the Salvation Army had played in people’s lives in the same way that his father was similarly motivated and was a bell ringer at Bi-Mart in Corvallis, OR for over 10 years. At the local level, he was a volunteer fireman and later served on the board of directors for the Blodgett-Summit Rural Fire Department.

Chuck and Jan’s passion for travel took them to favorite places like Ireland and Japan multiple times. In Japan, they visited the families of the foreign exchange students who lived with them in Utah and California. Their extended family in Japan, the Watanabes, include sisters Mariko, Eriko and their brother, Tomo as well as five “grandchildren.”

Chuck also carried the writing skills he developed in his career forward into retirement, writing letters to the editor of the Corvallis Gazette-Times as often as they would allow. He was also a constant consumer of news and relished in a discussion of current events, and he also inherited his love of crossword puzzles from his mother. His dry sense of humor and his penchant for teasing will be missed by all who knew and loved him.

Chuck was preceded in death by his father Stan, mother Charlotte, and his brother, Marty. He is survived by his wife Janet, his sister Lori, his brother-in-law Dale Hahn, his three children Christopher, Stephen, and Jennifer, his granddaughter, Cassidy and his nieces Sabra and Erin and nephews Michael, Scott, and Kevin.

A memorial will be held on June 19th at 11 am at Peace Lutheran Church in Philomath, OR. For those unable to attend, a livestream of the event will be available on the church’s Facebook channel, and a recording will also be posted after the event on the church’s website at peaceinphilomath.com.

The family asks that, if you are so moved, donations in honor of his memory be sent to the Blodgett-Summit Rural Fire Department at P.O. Box 513, Blodgett, OR 97326.