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Note: Of Charles's early life in Ger. nothing is known as a fact, but he received his emigration permission on 6�Apr 1853 in Stuttgart and emigrated on 10�Dec 1853 via Rotterdam. His reasons for emigrating were most likely similar to those that had already caused his two brothers (nos. 80 and 82) to leave. Millard B. Frazier claims (see reference below) that Charles "gladly" paid a substitute to escape military service, leaving him free to depart. On 14�Apr 1854, while still in Ann Arbor, he filed an intention to become a citizen of the US, and did so in Vallejo on 26�Sep. 1860. He had been tutored at home in English and French and prepared for a career in public life or the pharmaceutical business - again according to Frazier. He settled initially in Ann Arbor, and worked with his brother August at the hardware store, latterly in partnership, while acquiring American citizenship. He moved on to California, stopped off at a gold-mining town called Dutch Flat, and then proceeded to Vallejo. In 1854 he opened a brewery at 2101 Sonoma Blvd., and then in 1876 he and his partner, a Mr. Rothenbusch (or Rothenberg), purchased property at 514 Marin Street, where they built the Widenmann & Rothenbusch Brewery. Assuming complete control of the business, Charles incorporated it in 1904 as the Solano Brewery Company, which he managed until his death. (See below, no. 121, for the continued history of the brewery.) In 1916 this company built the Charles Hotel at the site of the former brewery on Marin Street, using timbers obtained from the Pan Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco. The hotel, which was among the first large brick buildings to materialize in Vallejo, fell into disrepair but has been restored and converted into affordable residential condominiums. Charles' wife Katherine immigrated to Ohio, where her brother owned a brewery. She married a master brewer, gave birth to two children, and then moved with her family to Benicia, CA. Here her husband and one child died, whereupon she went back to Germany-with Charles in hot pursuit. They returned to Vallejo after their marriage, Charles adopting his wife's son Carl from her first marriage. They sent the boy to Heald's Business College in San Francisco, but he died (probably of tuberculosis) at the age of 19 in a sanitarium in Monrovia, CA. The eleven-room house on Virginia Street that Charles purchased in 1872 remained in the family's hands for over seventy years. Built by J. E. Abbot in 1869, this Carpenter Gothic Farmhouse was designated City Landmark No. 14 on 15�Dec 1988, and is now known as the "Widenmann Plutchok Home." Charles's daughter Elsie later built her home next to it. Charles harbored a deep interest in community life, serving, by way of example, on the city council, the board of education, and the board of directors of the Citizens Bank (later the First National Bank of Vallejo). He and his family became an influential and enduring institution in Vallejo, one that exists to this day. Millard B. Frazier has written a series of articles on the first Widenmanns in the town, in the Vallejo Independent Press (see Bibliography). Although the author, apparently using interviews with Elsa Widenmann as his sole source, has not been overly meticulous about specific dates and chronology, he does present a vivid picture of this branch of the family's growth and importance to the city of Vallejo. The Vallejo Historical Museum has permanent exhibitions of family mementos and contains an extensive file concerning the Vallejo Widenmanns, including Charles's Auswanderunspass (emigration permit; no. 1679) and naturalization papers, plus a wealth of nineteenth and early twentieth century documents and ledgers relevant to the brewery (see below, no. 124).
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