Charlotte A. Shefl

Charlotte A. Shefl, 85, of rural O'Neill, died Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at Avera Creighton Care Center in Creighton.

Visitation will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, 2025 at Biglin's Mortuary in O'Neill with a 7 p.m. parish rosary.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 23, 2025 at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in O'Neill. Rev. Burkhalter will officiate.

Burial will be in the O'Neill Cemetery in O'Neill. Since she wished for a simpler funeral with a focus on remembrance, there will be time for quiet reflection after the graveside service.

Memorials may be made to the family for future designation.

For full obituary visit www.big linsmortuary.com.

Char left life in the same way she embraced it from the start: practical yet sensitive, with hope for humanity yet doing all she could to help people along the way. She was a long-time resident of a homestead she called Cedar Gables, halfway between northeast Nebraska's rural communities of O'Neill and Inman, but her rich journey can be traced across the seas and back to 1940.

On 6 April of that year, Charlotte Ann Catherine Russell was born as the daughter of Christine R. Russell (née Fasano) and Stanley Adrian Russell at the family's home on Cedar Street in Oneonta, NY. While her father faced World War II in North Africa, she spent her earliest years in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. In homes "on the wrong side of the tracks" along the aptly named Division Street and River Street, she grew up surrounded by family members, largely hard-working immigrants from southern Italy to upstate New York, including her maternal grandmother and grandfather, with a half-brother Edwin H. Sloan, joining the household when she was six. Meanwhile, the Russell side of the family - with roots extending through the Howlands of Mayflower days back to the Norman Conquest's Rozels - helped her blossom, thanks to such dynamic figures as her aunt, former Southern belle Mildred Dykeman. Another influence on her life was Bebe Sloan, who nourished her with historical facts.

Inspired to apply her curiosity and strengths in such fields as mathematics and physics, she graduated with honors from Oneonta High School and then earned a degree in mathematics from Hartwick College. In those early years, she put her strong clerical skills to work for the health department. After college graduation, she entered the U.S. Air Force, where she eagerly seized the power of science to unlock the mysteries of weather. Her first year was devoted to meteorology studies at the University of Oklahoma, which developed into a rich career as a meteorologist with the Air Force.

She has always remembered those years with special fondness. They took her to locations across Asia, where she broadened her perspective and established several friendships that she would maintain for a lifetime, with names such as Sara Barasch, Anne Raddatz and Norma Mokuau featuring prominently. The winds blew her to Air Force bases in Texas, Virginia, Japan, California, Illinois, Korea and Ohio.

It was in Japan, where she was assigned to Asian Weather Central, that she met the man who was to become her husband and life companion Frank Otto Shefl, of rural Nebraska. From this point onward, the pair's journeys entwined. They were wedded in 1968 and etched the beauty of their Kyoto honeymoon into their memory.

Alongside her exploration of the world with Frank while stationed at various bases, she threw herself into enrichment via such endeavors as tole painting, playing the autoharp, flower-arranging, cake-decorating and continuing to design and mend clothes for herself and others. She also enjoyed exploring the world through travel, whether camping out with Frank and later the rest of her family or making journeys in her inner world via growth in faith. She joined the Catholic Church with godparents Luke and Cathy LaVergne at her side at Travis AFB, CA, and later was confirmed in her faith at Scott AFB, IL.

Soon she would begin another adventure - leaving the service and entering the world of motherhood. She brought two daughters into the world, Anna Lynn in 1973 (while at Scott) and Frances Ellen (born in South Korea four years later), also carrying three other children who did not live to term, one of them a daughter buried in Korea. As the girls were growing up, the family returned to the United States, flourishing near the Wright Brothers' haunts in Ohio until Major Shefl himself left the service, retiring in 1983 to lead a busy life on his family's land in Nebraska. That brought yet another chapter to Char's life: learning to excel as a farm wife and contributor to the web of life in rural Nebraska.

Among the contributions she most enjoyed since moving to Nebraska were enhancing the St. Patrick's parish choirs with her alto harmony, just as the family had sung at all the places they lived before that. She also helped Frank greatly with VFW and Knights of Columbus activities, and she shared Jesus' love by bringing Holy Communion to other parish members both in church and at the homes of the infirm. She found it especially rewarding to assist the librarians at the Grattan Township Library. She brought the same organization skills and logic to bear for the Saint Mary's High School library in the Patty Devoy and Sr. Gloria Shuffer era. For that school system, she also shared the weather bug via classroom presentations about meteorology. While she embraced advancing technology, from UNIX computer systems for maintaining text-based contact with Anna at the UK's Cambridge University to radar images on the desktop, she spent much of her time outdoors - where her eyes could be more directly on the skies.

At Cedar Gables, she saw her first tornado forming, kept meticulous records of temperatures and humidity while not forgetting to report precipitation amounts to KBRX Radio, and helped nature look after garden flowers and vegetables. She was never content to slow down, even as her body ultimately forced this upon her. She passed away quietly in the arms of her 57-year love.

Char is survived by husband Frank in O'Neill, two daughters Anna (Phil Carmody) in Tallinn, Estonia and Frances in Omaha, brother-in-law Mike (Joan) Shefl and children and a wide web of family and friends around the world.

She was preceded in death by her father Stanley, mother Christine, stepfather Henry Sloan, half-brother Edwin (Nancy) Sloan, three miscarried children and many other beloved relatives.