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federal judge in service. He was appointed to
the bench in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt, after having served in
the state legislature and as county attorney of Lancaster County.
    "Back in the harness after a vacation in Mexico, Judge Munger is not
unduly elated by this anniversary, and is digging into his work as usual.
The routine cases he ordinarily hears will be interrupted with a more
exciting job when he goes to Hastings to preside in a kidnaping trial
Monday."4
    According to the Omaha World-Herald, "He firmly believes that
work is the best way to keep young." His bright blue eyes snap when he
says, "I call myself a member of the present generation because I feel that
way, and let it go at that."5

    Among Judge Munger's most memorable cases was a train robbery that
took place west of Omaha shortly after he took the bench and the prosecution of a group of Nebraskans accused of staking fraudulent homesteads.
    "He has a reputation for giving juries more thorough instructions
than any other judge in the middle west." the writer noted'
    Certainly the standards were high in the Munger and Russell families-Charlie's two sets of grandparents. The Mungers were Presbyterians
and pillars of the church; the Russells were New England style Emersonian Unitarians and a little more irregular in church attendance.
    Carol Estabrook says that despite Toody Munger's free-thinking family
history, she tried to instill religion in her children. "We were brought up
under strict ethical standards, in the Unitarian Church. Dad seldom went.
Mother dragged us until we wouldn't go any more." "Ultimately," said
Estabrook, "our ethical training came from our parents, our grandfather."
    "I had four aunts, my only blood aunts, every single one a Phi Beta
Kappa," explained Charlie. "On my mother's side the religion was that of
New England style intellectuals, but their religious organization is now a
left-wing political movement and the Russell descendants are Unitarians
no more."
    The Washington Post's Katharine Graham said she once received a
letter from Charlie in which he told about the moral rectitude of his Aunt
"Oofie," his father's older sister. "Oofie" was taught by her father, the
judge, never to flinch and always do her duty well. Indeed, she became
"Oofie" instead of "Ruth" because at a young age she mastered the delivery of long and complex bedtime prayers. After hearing these prayers, her
younger brother Al, who had trouble pronouncing consonants, would
then say "Dear God, mine's just like Oofie's."
    As an adult, Aunt Oofie was so dutiful that after her husband died,
she viewed his autopsy.
    Her nephew Charlie adored Oofie, partly because her standards were
so extreme that she amused him. But even Charlie was floored by Oofie's
reaction to .judge Munger's sudden death at age 80. just before he died,
Oofie noticed that her father had made a mistake in arithmetic. She said to
Charlie: "It was God's grace to take judge, knowing he wouldn't have
wanted to stay on and make errors."
    From the Russells and the Mungers, Charlie inherited both intellectual and physical hardiness. In addition to the judge's longevity, Charlie's
great-grandfather on his mother's side lived to age 87 and his wife lived to
be 82.
    Florence Russell Munger's maternal grandparents, the Inghams, were
among the first citizens of Algona, Iowa. Captain Ingham brought his young wife to Iowa, and the couple lived at first in a "sodhouse," which
was nothing more than a cave. The captain loved to relate stories about
his pioneer days, whereas his wife would only say: "They were mean,
hard days and I don't like to think about them."

    Much later, Captain Ingham came to operate the most prosperous
bank in Algona and accumulated tracts of farm land. He became affluent
enough so that when the industrialist Andrew Carnegie offered to pay
half the cost of a town library, Ingham, at the insistence of his wife, put
up the other half.
    A