Charles Thomas Whalens' MysteriousLife (An autobiographical account) THE LONESTRANGER

You can take the boy off the farm but it takes a bit for the smell to leave the boy!

I was born May 12, 1929 on the family farm near Stephen, Minnesotta. The 7th born and 6th among 6 brothers and 2 sisters. A couple of things I remember most about growing up is listening to the Lone Ranger and the Inner Sanctum on the radio and sneaking in the school house to get a book to read while herding cattle.
 

The Whalen School (above)

I attended the Whalen School District 97, until I finished the 5th grade. The one room country school was about a quarter mile from hour house. The country schools were then closed and we were bused to school in Stephen. I attended school in Stephen from 6th through 10th grade. Then I attended the Northewest School Of Agriculture near Crookston for 2 years, until I graduated from High School. I then attended Northern Montan Collage in Havre for two years and Montana State for two years and one quarter where I recieved a B.S. degree in in Civil Engineering in June 1952.
 

After graduation I worked for 6 months at the San Fransisco Naval Shipyard at Hunter's Point with 5 of my Civil Engeneering classmates. I did structural design work and studied Naval Arcitetcthure. A man who worked at the desk next to me told to me about Inter-American Geodetic Survey (IGAS) which was doing a mapping in South and Central America and in the Caribbean. I transferred to the IGAS and went to work in Panama in 1952. I was there until December of 1959, with one year out to work at a mine in Redding, California. With the IGAS I worked out of the Canal Zone, in Panama, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.. I also made a trip to Mexico, stopping in El Salvador and Guatemala on the way. I also did vertical surveys for topographic mapping, magnetic surveys for the navigational charts and gravity surveys, also in support of mapping.

In December of 1959 I transferred to 1381st Geodectic Survey Squadron of the Air Force, in Orlando Florida. The squadron provided survey support for the Air Force Ballistic missle and the for the eastern and western misssle test ranges. While working on the gravity control surveys, I traveled to Venezuela, to the French, Dutch and British Guiianas. Then I traveled to England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Framce, Italy and Turkey with a vacation in Spain and Morocco. I worked on a six - month survey to Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Korea, Okinowa , Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Mayla, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, and India. I worked in Ottwa, Canada one summer with my friends from the Earth Physics Branch Of Mines, Energy and Natural Rescources. I presented a paper at a meeting of the International Union Of Geodry and Geophysics in Moscow, Russia.

I transferred to the National Geodetic Survey in Rockville, Maryland in 1975 and worked their as Chief of the Vertical Network Branch for ten years until I retired. With the NGS I traveled to Mexico, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and East Germany. I took a trip to Hawaii, the Fiji Islands, New Zeland, and to Canberra, Australia to present a paper at the meeting of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

I married Patricia Nagel in Santiago, Cile in December 0f 1954. We had four sons, Paul was born in Redding, California October 4, 1955. Brian was born in Santiago, Chile on November 6, 1956. Twins, Patrick and Michael were born in Santiago, Chile on March 17, 1959. Patricia Nagel went to Santiago on vacation in 1961 with five children and refused to come back. I obtained custody of Paul and Brian in 1963. I divorced Patricia in 1964 and maried Daisy Torbert, the widow of a friend who died of cancerr in 1961. Daisy has two children, George born June 14, 1949 in the Canal Zone, and Marta born December 14, 1956 in Caracas, Venezeula. The Catholic Church annuled my marriage to Patricia Naggel and "convilated" (recognized the validty) of my marriage to Daisy in 1987.

A Trip to India By Charles T. Whalen

	MOTHER OF  GOD