Charles Huston King' Kingsolver of Braddock Heights MD died peacefully on June 23, 2013, in Mount Pleasant SC. He was 98. King was born on August 31, 1914, in Peru NE, a small town on the Missouri River. His parents, the late Charles Grant and Carrie Huston Kingsolver, were great believers in the value of education, and King and his two siblings went to college and beyond. He graduated from high school in the depths of the Great Depression, but worked his way through college and graduate school in the Midwest as the band leader of Charles King and the Kingsmen', playing saxophone and clarinet to the music of Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and other great big band leaders. At graduate school at Iowa State, he met and courted the love of his life, Margaret Yavorsky of Belle Plaine, Iowa, a graduate of St. Mary's at Notre Dame. They were married in September, 1941. After completing his PhD in Plant Pathology from Iowa State in 1942, he served as a Naval Officer in World War II, first as a communications officer in the South Pacific, then overseeing food distribution for the Pacific war efforts from New Zealand. He also served in the Army Reserves for many years. Following the war, King and Margaret started their family. Their four children, Carolyn, John, Joel and Cynthia, were born between 1946 and 1955. King taught at Iowa State and at the University of Missouri before the family moved to Maryland, where he worked for the US Department of the Army and the Department of Agriculture for the rest of his career. Dr. Kingsolver was an international authority on fungal diseases of cropscorn smut, rice blast, wheat rust. For his work he traveled throughout Central and South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, evaluating crop diseases and their potential for infecting crops in the US. For many years he was Director of Crop Protection Services in Fort Detrick, Maryland. He retired from his position with USDA in 1979. Although he had an outstanding career, family was always the central focus of King's life. Following his retirement, he and Margaret traveled extensively in the US and Europe, until her untimely death in 1988. He was always supportive and inordinately proud of his four children and six grandchildren. King maintained the family home in Maryland and a second home in Arizona near his eldest son John for many years, before moving to Mount Pleasant SC in 2009, where his youngest daughter Cynthia lives. King is predeceased by one daughter, Carolyn Kingsolver Purvis of Snowmass CO and by his siblings, Richard Kingsolver of Casper WY and Harriett Anne Goshorn of Neilly NE. King is survived by three of his children John Kingsolver and his wife Trudy of Tucson AZ, Joel Kingsolver and his wife Karen of Chapel Hill NC, and Cynthia Kingsolver Gittinger of Mount Pleasant SC; by his son-in-law Robert Purvis of Snowmass CO; by his six grandchildren, Kelly Purvis, George Gittinger and his wife Julia, Megan Gittinger Seifert and her husband Ashley, Sara Kingsolver and her fiancé Jason, Spencer Purvis, and Dylan Kingsolver; and many nieces and nephews; and by his caregiver Tashia Montgomery. We will dearly miss his love, his thoughtful and quiet manner, and his keen and dry sense of humor- a true gentleman. The family will receive friends from 5-6:30 pm, Friday July 5, at Keeney & Basford Funeral Home in Frederick MD. Funeral services will be held at 11 am, Saturday July 6, at Keeney & Basford Funeral Home, internment will follow at Mount Olivet Cemetery beside his beloved wife Margaret. The Reverend Stephen Gosnell from St. John's the Evangelist Catholic Church will preside. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. John's the Evangelist Catholic Church, 112 E 2nd Street, Frederick, MD 21701. Please visit Dr. Kingsolver's online memorial by going to www.keeneybasford.com
