Lasting Memories

Charles C. Milford
July 13, 1927-Aug. 4, 2024
Palo Alto, California/USA
Submitted by Miriam Palm and Scott Pearson

Charles C Milford, a resident of Channing House in Palo Alto, died August 4, 2024 at the age of 97. Charles was a long-time staff member at Stanford, librarian to the Food Research Institute from 1964 to 1991.

Charles was a native of Berlin, born on July 13, 1927; his birth name was Klaus Mühlfelder. His father was a physician from Thuringia, and his mother a Berlin resident. Charles’ mother was Christian, and his father of Jewish descent, although he had not been an observant Jew since his own father had died before Charles’ birth.

Charles grew up in Berlin, and was baptized Christian at the age of six. He attended schools without difficulty until his teens, when mixed race “Mischlinge” students were told to leave school. His father had been prohibited from practicing his profession since 1938, and the family had moved into his maternal grandmother’s household. After leaving school, Charles apprenticed in the trade of telephone equipment installation, and was drafted to use this skill in France to repair damage the Allies had done to telephone wiring; it was a forced-labor company of German citizens not eligible to join the military.

After the war ended, Charles returned to Berlin, finished his secondary education, and attended Universität Unter den Linden and later the Free University of Berlin. He studied and became interested in American history and literature and was able to emigrate to the United States in August 1950. While at the Free University he had helped move American donations of books to the university.

After arriving in New York, Charles enrolled in the Columbia University School of Library Science and earned his professional degree. He also made a “declaration of intention” to become a citizen, and chose Charles C. Milford as his name. In 1951, he was drafted into the US Army and sent to Pusan, Korea. His assignment was to manage a Special Services Library, and after he was released from active duty in 1953, he took a position at the Tacoma Public Library, where he met Patricia Shannon, a fellow veteran. They married in Berlin in 1963, in the presence of his father and maternal grandmother. He was naturalized as a citizen in February 1954.

Charles worked at the Tacoma library from 1953 to 1959; earned a master’s degree from University of Washington in 1961; and took a position at the Oregon State Library from 1961-64. In 1964 he came to Stanford as the librarian of the Food Research Institute.

Charles retired from Stanford in 1991, two years after his wife died. He moved into Channing House in the 1990s with his large collection of Judaica and Hebraica and family photograph albums, books he treasured that he has deeded to the Leo Baeck Institute in New York.