Charles Edward Hitch

This compiler had the pleasure to correspond with Mr. Charles E. Hitch on numerous occasions. I just found his obituary today (7/17/1999) on the Internet:

Charles "Chuck" Hitch Billings Gazette Vitals 11-11-98 Billings, MT

Charles "Chuck" Hitch passed away on Nov. 9, 1998, after a three-month battle with cancer. He was born in Lewistown on Aug. 1, 1919, to D N and Rhoda Adriance Hitch. Raised in central Montana, he graduated from Fergus County High. He attended Montana State College in Bozeman and graduated after the start of WWII.He signed up with Naval Flight Training and before graduation he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He finished that war as a captain. He stayed with the reserve long enough to become a Major.

Chuck worked with the Soil Conservation Service in Big Sandy, Conrad, Lewistown, Hamilton and Ekalaka. Following that, he worked for the Department of Natural Resources and the Old West Regional Commission as a range management specialist out of Billings. While in Lewistown, he met and married Dorothy Kohl. Raised in agriculture, educated in agriculture, he kept a sharp interest in the field all his life, but it got cut back to a "back-yard garden" in the last few years.

He is survived by two brothers, Quinlan of Hobson and Dr. James of Sequim, Wash.; two sisters, Margaret "Peggy" Haight of Spearfish, S.D., and Barbara Anderson of Cooper Landing, Alaska; four children, James Kohl and Kathy Strade of Portland, Ore., and John Kohl and Julie Vigil of Denver, Colorado. Services will be held at the First Presbyterian Church on Friday, November 13, at 2 p.m. Interment with military honors will be at Mountview Cemetery. Michelotti, Sawyers & Nordquist, Alderson Chapel has charge of arrangements.

Charles married Dorothy Marie Eggers-Kohl on 06 Nov 1959 in Lewistown, Fergus Co., MT.¹ (Dorothy Marie Eggers-Kohl was born on 26 May 1923 in Chewelah, WA ^{1 3} and died on 20 Jul 1993 in Billings, Yellowstone Co., MT ^{1 4}.)