Charles U Williams was born in New York City to parents Seth and Augusta Williams. His family was most likely not a wealthy one, because Charles left school at age 13 to begin working. He had three jobs to start his career: selling advertising for a music trade paper, a job in the New York Custom House and printing up calling cards for young men about town in 1880's New York City. When this palled a little, Charles returned to school -- night school that is, to study architectural drawing. He claimed that he designed 40 houses between the ages of 17 and 21 and oversaw the construction of each of them.
About that time he was married to Susie Wood, a young woman from Brooklyn. She lived in a working class part of Brooklyn and her father gave his occupation as "merchants" in the 1870 census. Charles and Susie moved to Illinois and it was around that time that Charles became interested in photography. He began by making photographs in schools of the children and selling the photos through the teachers. Once he could mass produce the photos, he was able to lower his prices from 35 cents to 10 cents.
Sometime before 1890, Charles and Susie moved to Bloomington IL. Between 1890 and 1896 he had a company called United States View Company that included 12 to 14 uniformed photographers that travelled from town to town, taking photos of families on their front porches and selling those photos. After seeing a photo postcard sent fom Heidelberg Germany by his friend Sigmund Livingston, Charles was inspired to create the photo postcard here in the U S. He also had a very successful business photographing the famous preacher, Billy Sunday. He began his scenic postcard venture in Quincy IL. He took 54 photos and sold 160,000 postcards in that city. In Springfield one merchant bought 320,000 postcards! For many years he had a photography studio on Main Street for family photos. His advertisements promoted his lady assistants who were able to put the babies and children in especially sweet poses.
With the advent of the automobile, Charles was quick to invest his money in an automobile dealership in the 200 block of Washington Street. That business grew so quickly that he had to build a second building in 1916 to hold all the cars that he displayed and sold. He held auto shows for many years, serving up cars and entertainment. On one occasion he gave a picnic for 450 of his customers.
Charles' son Walter was possibly as creative as his father. Walter developed the oil burning stove that led to the establishment of a multimillion dollar business in Bloomington and finally a merger with the Eureka Company.
Charles was involved in many community boosting organizations, such as the Rotarians, the Commercial Club and the Bloomington Consistory. As noted in my post two days ago, Charles was the main force behind the Lafayette Apartments. He and Susie seemed to live a very private life. They did not appear in the society columns with the same frequency as other Bloomington luminaries, or belong to the Bloomington Country Club. Susie was active with the Woman's Club and was an accomplished pianist and vocalist. After she moved to Bloomington, Susie completed a certificate program at the Wesleyan School of Music. Susie belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church and Charles belonged to the Wesley Methodist Church. Perhaps their church memberships at that time of their deaths merely reflect changes that occurred in the 23 years between their deaths. Susie died suddenly in 1930 at the age of 62 and Charles lived until 1953 to the age of 86. Their son Walter continued to live in Bloomington, but their daughter Francoise had moved to Glendale California many years before.
Most of the information for this post came from the Pantagraph obituary for Charles and the US census.