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<em>Charlie Farmer</em> is one of those of our Class whose military careers were cut short by illness. His years with the colors were comparatively few and many of us, including myself, never saw him again after that bitter February morning when we marched between snowdrifts shoulder-high to Graduation in Cullum Hall. Quiet and retiring as a cadet, he never developed into a flamboyant or colorful officer, but served his country well and faithfully, without fanfare or the blowing of trumpets. And so there is nothing flamboyant or colorful about his official record. It tells the all-important story of high character and duty well done, but unhappily there is little else to be gleaned from it except dates and places and routine promotions from second lieutenant to colonel. Nor is that all! Childless and outliving almost all of his close friends and blood relatives, and having never written an autobiography, there is now disconcertingly little to be found to tell what manner of man he was. He is gone but little more than a year, yet the past seems to have closed over his dreams, his hopes, his ambitions and the inner man as completely as the ocean closes over a ship that sinks beneath its waves.</p>
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We know that he was born in 1876 in Mt. Carroll, IL, of sturdy pioneer stock that came early to this country, and to the Illinois country with the first wave of settlers, and we remember the amusement and zest with which he would recount the adventures and pleasures of the smalltown boy in the eighties. But once he said that his life from the age of twelve until he came to West Point had been largely hard work, and from that and from the critical struggle he had with the first-year work there, we inferred that he did not have too much schooling at home. However, he had a good mind and by graduation had attained a very respectable class rank.</p>
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As a cadet, he was well liked and could always amuse the group with his dryly humorous tales and ready wit, but the habit of his plebe year of quickly slipping away to his books never left him. Quiet, studious, attentive to duty and retiring, few of us felt that we knew him well. But he had his close friends, with some of whom he corresponded until death intervened, and he found time to form at least a few of the warm and generous friendships of youth that among graduates so long endure and are of their most precious possessions. He was one of that not inconsiderable group of cadets who strongly preferred the carefree life of a private and a private he remained!</p>
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Joining the Cavalry on graduation, his Army life was largely in the great Southwest, at that time barely emerged from the Indian wars and the days of the covered wagon, and still largely undeveloped. There, hard riding and the pursuit of the elusive bandit whose ready escape was over the border, were still the lot of the Cavalry. Much of his time was spent in temporary camps, either very cold or very hot and always comfortless, but there was service for him in the storied and happy posts of Bliss, Grant, Huachuca, Mercedes and McAllen, and for the young there was ever song and laughter and hunting and fishing, and the cares of the world sat lightly on their shoulders. But he was not always on the Border. In his story, there is duty in Cuba and in Panama and at Fort Meade, S.D., Fort Robinson, Neb., Monterey, CA, and in 1905, graduation from the one-time Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth. Then there was Philippine duty, where in the 4th Cavalry and as a troop commander he took part in the Moro wars under that renowned Indian fighter, Hugh L. Scott, of the Class of ‘76. In 1906, when civil government was established, he became Secretary of the District of Sulu. Over the years, he served with the 4th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 16th, and 17th regiments of Cavalry. In 1907 and 1908 there was a long leave and travel in China, Burma, Ceylon, Italy, France and England.</p>
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Some years before World War I he began to have trouble with his hearing and by 1917 he was so deaf as to be unfit for combat duty, but was able to serve usefully as an instructor of the National Guard on the Border, and in France as a Supply Officer and as Chief of Staff of the great American base at Issur-Tille. However, by 1920 he was no longer able to carry on and so was retired. Established in Florida, he was happy because of much time for his garden, for reading, and for his correspondence with old friends, but he was remote from the beaten track of his classmates and few of us ever saw him again. Enjoying foreign languages, he read much in Spanish and in French. His first wife, Hester Nolan, died in 1941, and in 1943 he married Mrs. Eugenie B. Nelson, a congenial companion and a devoted wife. Together, until his death, they enjoyed their home and garden and watched the cosmopolitan life of Miami swirl past. She continues at their home, and to her Charlie Farmer’s living classmates extend their warm sympathy, the assurance of their continued interest in her, and their appreciation of her loving care for him in his last years, in particular during the two years that he was an invalid.</p>
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<em>—C. D. H.</em></p>
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