Obituaries - Aug. 15, 1997

Retired advertising executive Charles Edward Coleman, formerly of Camarillo, died Aug. 7 at his home in Westlake Village. He was 86.

Coleman was born May 28, 1911, in Wayne, Ill. Raised on a farm and initially home-schooled by his mother Verna, Coleman was already on the way to developing a lifelong love of reading by the time he started attending Wayne Elementary School. By the age of 7, he had read many of the classics.

After graduating from the Elgin Academy preparatory school in Elgin, Ill., he attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the University of Wyoming in Laramie, majoring in animal husbandry. He worked his way through college as a cowboy and by writing stories for Western Romance magazine.

His studies were cut short when a fire destroyed the family’s Illinois home. After Coleman designed the new home, he graduated from the University of Wyoming with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1933. Upon graduation, he worked for the Swift Packing Co. of Chicago, then the Union Pacific Railroad Co. of Omaha.

Coleman’s seven-year courtship of Mary Carolyn Palmer led to marriage in 1937, and they made their home in Omaha. Shortly after the birth of their first child, they moved to Kentucky, where Coleman wrote and published Sheep and Cattle Magazine. After that, the family went to St. Charles, Ill., and Coleman became a partner along with his brother Jim and their father Leslie in the Coleman Land Co.

In 1942, the family moved to Santa Monica, where Coleman wrote technical operations manuals for Douglas Aircraft.

After World War II, Coleman focused on a career in advertising. He was an account executive, working for such campaigns as Western Airlines, Lockheed, Smokey the Bear for the U. S. Forest Service and Hughes Aircraft. He wrote the Sciencescope column in U. S. News & World Report and also wrote columns for Scientific American.

“Charley was like a walking encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge of history and literature, his phenomenal memory, and his ability to process complex information and explain it clearly,” said his daughter, Carol Bungert of Camarillo.

He retired as a senior vice president of the advertising firm Foote, Cone & Belding in 1976.

Months short of celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in 1987, Mary died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease.

In 1988, Coleman married Marion Coe Palmer and they made their home in Camarillo. Three years later, he was widowed a second time.

Coleman was married to Gladys Sahr in 1993 and they moved to Westlake Village. Bungert said that in the last year of her father’s life, Sahr cared for him with grace, grit, love and humor.

Her father “loved life with a passion and lived the minutes of each day,” Bungert said.

His hobbies included writing and producing 8-millimeter films, drawing, photography, and designing and building puppets. He also enjoyed playing the ukulele, gourmet cooking and composing love sonnets with risque lyrics, his daughter said.

For more than 20 years, he produced a weekly newsletter for far-flung relatives highlighting the activities of the extended family.

“A fascinating conversationalist, he was a master wordsmith, an excellent writer and a grand communicator,” Bungert said.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Coleman is survived by daughters Judy Della Santina of Oakland and Leslie Zeigen of Salem, Ore.; seven grandchildren; one great-granddaughter; one brother, Jim Coleman of St. Charles, Ill., and two stepdaughters.

Services will be held in Wayne, Ill. Coleman will be interred at the family plot in Little Woods Cemetery in Wayne.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations of books may be made to the library of the donor’s choice.

Ventura County obituaries are published free of charge as a public service to readers. Obituaries are based on information provided by mortuaries.