Charles Joseph Guggenmos, or CJ as most new him, died January 17, 2010, at his farm near Crawford, NE.

 

CJ was born August 15, 1928 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota to Charles Louis and Kathryn Guggenmos.  He was credited with being one of the first c-section births at the Mayo Clinic.  His family moved to Crawford from Omaha in 1930 and he began his education at Crawford City Schools where he attended from kindergarten thru third grade.  He attended fourth thru eighth grade at Corn Valley District 60.  His ninth and tenth grade years were spent at Crawford High School and 1946 CJ graduated from the University of Nebraska, School of Agriculture in Cutis, Nebraska. He then moved to San Jose, California where he lived with his sister Mildred Hohl.  While in California he took classes at San Jose State University and worked for a landscaping business and nursery.  In 1948 he moved back to Crawford to help is dad on the family farm.

 

On May 2, 1949 CJ married Phyllis Theaubult.  To this union three children (Michael, Pamela, and Rita) were born.  On September 2, 1957 CJ was remarried to Shirley Hughes.  This union brought two step sons (Charlie and Mark), and the birth of a daughter (Theresa).

 

In 1963 CJ started working as a plumber and pipe fitter on jobs at Chadron State College, and at the Platte Valley and Independent Banks.  From 1967 to 1974 he and the family moved around a bit as he worked in Lusk, Wyoming on the prison and hospital, Hasting, Nebraska on the hospital, North Platte, Nebraska on the Union Pacific railroad buildings, and  the power plant in Brownville, NE.  In 1974 he moved back to Crawford to take over the family farm and start his own plumbing business, CJ’s Plumbing.  In 1993 CJ sold the plumbing business but continued to pump septic tanks and farm.

 

During his free time CJ loved to play the piano.  He played in his own band, CJ and the Alleycats, but mostly played solo at the nursing homes in Chadron and Crawford, and occasionally down at the Eagle POE in Crawford.

 

When CJ was a boy his mother told him, “If a job has once begun never leave it ‘til it’s done, be the job great or small, do it well or not at all!”  Anyone who knew him knows that these are word that he lived by.  He was a top notch plumber, a very successful farmer, and a loving husband, father, and grandfather. His smiles and neighborly waves will be greatly missed.