Charles Joseph Francis

   Charles Joseph Fran­cis, age 52, of Hori­con, passed away on April 23, 2023, after an al­most two year long and hard-fought bat­tle with can­cer.
“Char­lie” was born Oc­to­ber 1, 1970, in Green Bay, the son of John Fran­cis and the late Pamela (Fisher) Pow­less. He was proudly named after his pa­ter­nal Grand­fa­ther (the late “Grandpa Char­lie”). Char­lie at­tended Eisen­hower El­e­men­tary School in Green Bay through sixth grade. In his early years, he en­joyed play­ing with his best friend, Mike Mey­ers, who lived next door, going on car and plane trips to visit his grand­par­ents in Miami Beach, and spend­ing warm sum­mer week­ends at his aun­tie and un­cles’ cot­tages at both Star Lake in Moun­tain WI and Kan­ga­roo Lake in Door County. He lov­ingly tor­mented his younger brother, while si­mul­ta­ne­ously watch­ing over him, wait­ing for him to grow up to be a “big boy” like him. He es­pe­cially en­joyed his close re­la­tion­ship with his Grandma Ruth, who luck­ily lived only a block away. His par­ents sep­a­rated when he was young, but he en­joyed so many spe­cial times vis­it­ing his mother fre­quently and great times with the Fisher Fam­ily. He was proud of his her­itage, con­sist­ing of his Jew­ish mother’s fam­ily and his fa­ther’s Ger­man and Syr­ian/Lebanese her­itage.
In 1982, Char­lie moved to Mayville, with his fa­ther and step­mother. He at­tended Mayville Ju­nior High School for seventh and eighth Grade. Sud­denly, Char­lie be­came “Chuck”. He en­joyed play­ing foot­ball and play­ing alto sax­o­phone in the high school band. He went on to grad­u­ate from Mayville High School, Class of 1988. From there he en­tered the weld­ing pro­gram at North­east­ern Wis­con­sin Tech­ni­cal Col­lege in Green Bay and en­joyed a year of liv­ing with his Grandma Ruth while he fin­ished his de­gree. In 1989, he moved back to Mayville and began what would be a suc­cess­ful 34-year long ca­reer at Mayville En­gi­neer­ing Com­pany (MEC). Over three+ decades, he formed life­long spe­cial con­nec­tions with ven­dors and so many col­leagues and was al­ways there to lend a hand to any­one who needed it. He was a man of habits, rit­u­als and rou­tines, and there wasn’t any­one close to him who didn’t know all about them. These things were often the butt of jokes, and he loved every minute of it. He last held the po­si­tion of Weld Tech En­gi­neer Su­per­vi­sor and re­tired in early March of this year. In ap­pre­ci­a­tion for his ded­i­ca­tion and pas­sion for youth de­vel­op­ment within his in­dus­try, MEC hon­ored him by re­nam­ing the in­ter­nal weld boot camp “The Charles Fran­cis Weld Boot Camp” at a large re­tire­ment party at­tended by col­leagues.
Chuck was an avid heavy metal music fan and was es­pe­cially fond of the group Judas Priest. He and his friends en­joyed dozens of con­certs and he owned every sin­gle one of their al­bums. Chuck and his close friends also formed two dif­fer­ent heavy metal bands, Sonic Fury and In­fantry. They fre­quently had gigs all over the area and were widely known and en­joyed by fans and friends. Chuck be­came in­ter­ested in deer hunt­ing at an early age and adored going both gun and bow hunt­ing with his dad, cousins, and friends. One of his most cov­eted spots was what he re­ferred to as “The Big Tree”. While not a morn­ing per­son in gen­eral, he never minded get­ting up and out into his spot to be one with na­ture in peace and quiet. He also en­joyed car­ing for his yard and lawn and loved to show off what he had done out there. Be­fore the death of his mother in 2008, he and his brother en­joyed count­less vis­its, trips and great times with his mother, Pam, and her hus­band, Roy.
In 2016, Chuck met the love of his life, Amy Gil. To­gether with her two chil­dren Jake and Jor­dan, they formed a nur­tur­ing and lov­ing bond, and Char­lie quickly be­came a beloved part of Amy’s fam­ily. On Sep­tem­ber 12, 2020, they mar­ried in a beau­ti­ful back­yard cer­e­mony at the home of Amy’s par­ents in Muskego, with close fam­ily, friends, and col­leagues in at­ten­dance. The union they formed four years ear­lier was set in stone that day. Amy and Char­lie en­joyed so many ad­ven­tures to­gether. Trav­el­ing to all of Wisconsin’s casi­nos and play­ing video poker for hours at a time, grab­bing a drink down at “The Rock”, a bite to eat at Gin­ger’s, sum­mer fes­ti­vals, con­certs, tak­ing their boat out on Fox Lake, din­ing at their fa­vorite spot Johnny Man­hat­tans, and vis­it­ing Char­lie’s fam­ily in Moun­tain. Trips to Las Vegas and Myr­tle Beach brought even more fun to the mix. They also en­joyed vis­its to Amy’s fam­ily cabin on Lake Ar­bu­tus, spend­ing time out on the water and at the Sand­bar. He was al­ways the “pon­toon cap­tain”. Most re­cently they would take shorter rides to Amy’s aunt and uncle’s place in Wis­con­sin Dells, where many more won­der­ful mem­o­ries were made. He loved en­joy­ing a nice Chopin Vodka Gim­let.
Char­lie is sur­vived by his lov­ing wife, Amy Fran­cis of Hori­con; step­son, Jacob Egan (Mariah Han­ra­han) of Mayville; and step­daugh­ter, Jor­dan Pe­ters of Hori­con; step­sons, Vic­tor (Kelly) Sun­der­land and their daugh­ter, Emma of Beaver Dam, and Dustin (Chelsey) Sun­der­land and their son, Jax, of Beaver Dam; brother, Chris Fran­cis (David Kwasny) of Mil­wau­kee; fa­ther and step-mother, John and An­toinette Fran­cis of Moun­tain; fa­ther-in-law and mother-in-law, Harry and Chris­tine Gil of Muskego; brother-in-law, Ben (Amy) Gil and their chil­dren Bent­ley and Alexis of Muskego; Step­sis­ters and Step­brother Maria (Craig) Bielin­ski and chil­dren, Kayla and Bella of Lomira, Mary Ellen Buechel (Ritch Reinke) and chil­dren, Logan and Mor­gan of Sher­wood, John Schultz and chil­dren, Nathan and Syd­ney of Mayville; step­fa­ther, Roy Pow­less of Green Bay and step­brother, Matt (Holly) Pow­less and fam­ily of Green Bay; uncle, Robert (Mag­gie) Fisher of Green Bay; cousins, Al­li­son (Car­olyn) Adler of Hunt­ing­ton Woods, MI and Hillary (Jor­dan) Levin of Wa­ter­ford, MI; and half-sis­ter, Karen Yashon-Brown of San Diego, CA. Spe­cial friends Jon Wes­t­i­mayer of Hori­con, Troy Finke of Mayville, Todd Bertel of Mayville, Steve Drews of Hori­con and their fam­i­lies. He also adored his spe­cial bond with Amy’s Grand­mother (“Grandma”), Mary Neubauer of Wauwatosa and cher­ished his re­la­tion­ship with Amy’s Aunt Kath and Uncle John Han­k­ins of Menomonee Falls. He is fur­ther sur­vived by many other cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, and in-laws, in­clud­ing the chil­dren of his friends who con­sid­ered him “dad”.
He was pre­ceded in death by his mother, Pamela Pow­less; grand­par­ents, Ruth and Charles Fran­cis, Lawrence (Babe) and Ju­dith Fisher; a spe­cial aunt, Helen Blus­tein; and many other great-grand­par­ents, un­cles, aunts, cousins and loved ones.

   A Cel­e­bra­tion of Life for Char­lie will be on Sat­ur­day, May 13, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. at the Koepsell Fu­neral Home in Mayville. A vis­i­ta­tion for Char­lie will be held at the fu­neral home on Sat­ur­day, May 13, from 11 a.m. until the time of ser­vice at 2 p.m.
MEC has set up a schol­ar­ship in honor of Char­lie. Memo­ri­als can be made to the schol­ar­ship by vis­it­ing the fol­low­ing web­site. Charles Fran­cis Schol­ar­ship (etapestry.com)
Koepsell Fu­neral Home in Mayville is serv­ing the fam­ily. www.​Koepsellfh.​com