duster340wdg
04-26-2017, 09:56 PM
30 years ago next month marks the anniversary of Charlie Scheel's death. Charlie Scheel sold newspapers for 25 years on the corner of 10th & K streets in Sacramento. One day Charlie didn't show up to run his stand so the police were called to check on Charlie. He was found in his apt dead from a heart attack. When police were searching his apt, one officer found $67,000 dollars in cash in a paper bag. UM did a story the next year to see if an heir to his estate could be found. A women claiming to be his daughter called the telecenter and explained that Charlie Scheel was here dad. Her claim was later processed by the county of Sacramento.
I recently went to the local library and searched the Sacramento Bee for articles regarding Charlie Scheel. I have an active library card so the searches are free & I was able to obtain several articles regarding Charlie's death, his estate & a story on how his daughter who never got to know her father.
(NOTE THIS IS A VERY LONG POST)
NEWS VENDOR'S 'FAMILY' FEELS THE LOSSShow Details
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - May 9, 1987Browse Issues
For the first time in a quarter of a century, Charles ""Chuck'' Scheel didn't show up for work Friday.
After he failed to arrive at his homemade newsstand at 10th and K streets at 4:30 a.m., police were notified. Officers found the body of the popular news vendor a few doors away in his $150-a-month hotel room.
An autopsy showed that Scheel died of heart disease.
""He was sort of like a fixture on the K Street Mall,'' said Sacramento Police Lt. Joe Barnes.
For the rest of the day, dozens of Scheel's friends and acquaintances clustered around the newsstand and reminisced.
""You could set your clock by him,'' said 68-year-old James Holligan, a retired railroad worker who visited with Scheel nearly every day. ""Rain or shine, he was always here.''
Scheel, 76, lived alone in the Golden Hotel, a half block from where he worked. A familiar sight to thousands of Sacramentans, he flashed a smile and offered a pleasant greeting to virtually everyone who walked past.
His customers were his family.
But when he wasn't working, he kept to himself.
""Nobody seems to know much about him,'' said Sid Friedman, 68, who works the afternoon shift at the newsstand. ""I've known him for 22 years, and I didn't know his last name 'til today. All I know is that he never took a day off.''
""He was unfailingly cheerful,'' said Walter Gunnison, a retired newsman who bought papers from Scheel every morning. ""He never objected to making change. He had one of those coin holders on his belt. You could give him a twenty and he'd change it without a murmur, taking pride in the nice crisp bills he always had on hand.
""He always wore brown. It looked like the same outfit -- brown shirt and maybe brown pants. Whenever he drank coffee he removed his teeth. He looked different without teeth, but don't we all?''
Police Officer Ken Moon, who walks a beat in the neighborhood, remembered Scheel as an avid sports fan.
""He loved talking about the (San Francisco) Giants,'' the policeman said. ''Every morning there was this ritual here with Manuel Joseph.''
Joseph, a 75-year-old appliance store owner, said he always stopped for a paper and conversation.
""We used to kid the hell out of each other,'' Joseph said. ""I'm a Dodgers fan. He was a die-hard Giants fan. Every time the Giants lost, he'd be there with a newspaper over his face.''
Ray Turner, manager of the Glendale Federal Savings branch on the corner, looked out for Scheel. On rainy mornings, he let the news vendor stack his papers in the building's recessed entrance.
""Every morning I'd give him a cup of coffee,'' Turner said. ""He always took three sugars and a stir. And he was a real prince of a fellow. The bums would come up and panhandle him, but he never lost his temper.''
But Scheel also was an enigma. He was a sports fan, but he worked every day -- including Christmas -- and never attended sports events. Even his closest acquaintances didn't know his last name.
He did a large curbside business. Going-to-work traffic sometimes would back up on 10th Street as customers stopped for their morning papers. In addition to major California newspapers and the New York Times, he sold up to 50 copies a day of the Daily Racing Form.
""He was a loving person. . . . Everybody around here loved him,'' said Mike Matosevich, a K Street tailor and clothing store owner.
Matosevich said the news that Scheel was 76 years old shocked him almost as much as word of his death.
""He looked like he was 50,'' Matosevich said.
Little was known about Scheel's background.
""He mentioned in passing once that he had worked on a farm in Michigan,'' Gunnison recalled. ""He also mentioned a stretch in the Navy.''
Coroner's officials said he had no known relatives.
His body lay unclaimed Friday night in the county morgue.
Caption: 1 PHOTO(S)Special to The BeeNews vendor Charles Scheel had a smile for those who passed his newsstand at 10th and K streets in Sacramento.
NEWS VENDOR LEFT $67,000
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - May 15, 1987Browse Issues
A man who spent quarter of a century hawking newspapers on a downtown Sacramento street corner left $67,000 in cash in a paper sack in his $150-a- month hotel room when he died last week.
But the Sacramento County public administrator's staff said 76-year-old Charles Scheel left no known heirs and the money may end up in the state treasurer's Bureau of Unclaimed Property.
""If his family is located, the money will be turned over to his heirs,'' said Ramona Nunes of the public administrator's office. ""But so far, we haven't been able to find any relatives.''
Nunes said her office made arrangements with a funeral home for services Saturday morning.
A loner who kept to himself when he wasn't peddling papers at 10th and K streets, Scheel worked seven days a week -- even Christmas and New Year's -- and always had a pleasant greeting for his customers.
He was found dead in his room at the Golden Hotel when he failed to show up for work last Friday. An autopsy showed that he had died of heart disease.
Nunes said several hundred dollars were found in his wallet and pockets of his shirt and trousers. But the bulk of the $67,504.80 found in his room| consisted of $100 and $50 bills stuffed in a white paper McDonald's sack on the floor next to his bed.
She said the discovery wasn't revealed publicly until Thursday because the public administrator's staff wanted to first complete its initial inventory of Scheel's possessions.
""The last time we had a case like this we had people just coming out of the woodwork . . . calling us,'' Nunes said.
The $1,865 cost of Scheel's funeral services will be deducted from his estate, as will any claims filed by creditors, Nunes said.
""I knew he never spent anything,'' said Ray Turner, manager of the Glendale Federal Savings branch on the corner where Scheel sold his newspapers. ""He'd buy a new pair of pants and a shirt now and then. But outside of that, he was very thrifty.
""It surprises me that he had that much money, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me,'' Turner said. ""That's Charlie.''
Nunes said it is conceivable that Scheel acquired the $67,000 solely from his news business. ""If you sell papers for more than 20 years and live as frugally as he did, it seems possible that he could have accumulated that over time.''
She said efforts to determine if he was receiving any sort of government pension had been unsuccessful. Her office has been unable to come up with a Social Security number for Scheel.
""Where did he get the money? I don't know,'' Nunes said. ""Your guess is as good as mine.''
Scheel, who always wore a brown shirt and brown pants at his newsstand, will be buried in a blue suit after an open casket service at 10 a.m. Saturday at N.G. Culjis & Son Chapel of the Valley, 1525 Alhambra Blvd. Interment will be at Camellia Memorial Lawn Cemetery. ""He's going to wear a good quality burial suit that goes for about $88 retail,'' said one of the directors at Culjis. ""It's a navy blue suit. He's going to have a nice service.''
NEWS VENDOR HAD SECRET PAST
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - January 25, 1988Browse Issues
When Sacramento news vendor Charles ""Chuck'' Scheel paid occasional visits to relatives in Pennsylvania, he reportedly flashed a wad of $100 bills.
Yet he lived a meager existence in Sacramento, eating fast food and occupying a bare $150-a-month hotel room until his death from heart disease last May 8.
Scheel left $67,000 in cash in a white paper McDonald's sack but no will -- and no hint that he was survived by a daughter and 22 cousins in Pennsylvania.
In fact, he gave a phony age. When coroner's investigators sorted through Scheel's belongings, they found papers listing his age as 76 -- wrong, it turns out, by 17 years.
He was 59.
Though Scheel hawked newspapers in downtown Sacramento for a quarter of a century, friends and acquaintances knew little of his background.
A familiar sight at his 10th and K streets newsstand, he was unfailingly cheerful, offering a friendly greeting to virtually everyone who walked past. But he never mentioned his family.
""He was a mystery man, very much so,'' John C. March Jr., a probate investigator who tracks down missing heirs, said in an interview last week. ''Nearly everyone we interviewed said the same thing: They didn't know much about him.
""Selling newspapers was his sole occupation, although we've heard stories from some of his friends that he might have made book,'' March said. ""When he'd visit Pittsburgh, he'd (have) quite a bit of money. Hundred dollar bills.
""He sold racing forms here in town at his stand, so we thought that might be a natural tie-in. All speculation but really interesting.
""Being a newspaper vendor is a pretty good cover. He was pretty well hidden that way. But he didn't change his name.''
Other mysterious sides to Scheel's life:
** None of Scheel's cousins knew that he had married and fathered a daughter, Jacquelyn Sweet, now 30 and also living in Pennsylvania.
** She had no inkling of her father's whereabouts and was surprised to learn she had cousins living nearby.
** It isn't known why Scheel never contacted his father and stepmother -- Pennsylvania farmers -- after leaving for California in 1957.
""He never wrote after he left,'' March said. ""Not a card. Not a thing. And they parted, apparently, in friendly circumstances.''
** Scheel, driving a black Cadillac, visited several cousins in 1956, saying he was leaving for Sacramento to open a car wash. Yet, he apparently remained in Pennsylvania for about a year after that, marrying, fathering a daughter and getting arrested for disturbing the peace March 1, 1957, by police in Pittsburgh.
** It isn't known where he got the $14,000 in cash that police at the Pittsburgh airport found in his pockets when he was arrested. ""They hauled him in, but couldn't keep him,'' March said.
** Also unknown was why Scheel gave a false age. ""When we found that the date of birth we started with was inaccurate by 17 years, the only thing we could think of was he might have been drawing Social Security, but it turns out he had no Social Security account,'' March said.
""At one point, we thought that he might have assumed someone else's name and birth date,'' he said. But that was a false assumption. ""We're now convinced he is Charles Scheel,'' March said.
Ramona Nunes of the Sacramento County public administrator's office said Scheel's real birth date of March 30, 1928, turned up in a check of FBI files. The FBI, it turned out, had received copies of his fingerprints when he enlisted in the Navy in 1946.
Nunes said the Scheel estate is expected to be settled this spring after his daughter's lawyer, Stephen A. Brandenburger Jr., files documents verifying that Jacquelyn Sweet is his natural daughter and primary heir to the estate.
Brandenburger declined to discuss the case, saying Sweet indicated that she didn't want publicity until the estate was settled.
Claims against the estate include $2,011 for the funeral, $1,100 for the burial and $70 to publish a death notice in the Daily Recorder. His newsstand ran up debts of $400 to The Bee and $54 to The Union.
""What made this case unusual is that we didn't know anything about (Scheel),'' Nunes said. ""We didn't have zip. Even the date of birth that we thought we had was wrong.''
Until last November, March said, he also knew little about Scheel. It was then that he learned from one of Scheel's customers that the newspaper vendor may have been from Pennsylvania.
""Based on that, we traced his family through Pennsylvania vital statistics records,'' March said. One thing led to another, and from the arrest record March learned that Scheel had been married.
""So we searched Pennsylvania for marriage records and found one,'' March said. ""Then we traced 30 years forward and found his wife, who had died two weeks -- exactly two weeks to the day -- before he did. I don't think she died of a broken heart.
''It came as a shock to us when this new information came back on his arrest and marriage,'' he said. ""None of the cousins knew he was married. None of them knew he had a child.
''And the child doesn't know any of the cousins. And she's chomping at the bit -- she wants to contact them and ask about her dad. But we're keeping them away because they're adverse claimants at this point.''
Once lawyer's and finder's fees are paid, Jacquelyn Sweet and her family will be left with about three-quarters of the estate, March estimated. ''Although it's not a fortune, it's a substantial amount of money that she and her husband can use,'' he said.
Caption: 1 PHOTO(S)Special to The Bee/Walter GunnisonCharles Scheel was a familiar sight at his 10th and K streets newsstand.
MONEY CAN'T BUY MEMORIES OF FATHER SHE NEVER KNEW
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - July 26, 1988
Jacquelyn Sweet never knew her father.
Her mother, a hardworking, bitter woman, almost never spoke of the man who deserted them six months before Sweet was born.
While Sweet was growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania and wondering what her dad was like, hundreds of people in Sacramento were greeting him every day with a 'good morning' as they bought the day's news.
They knew him as eternally friendly Charlie Scheel, a man who loved baseball, never took a day off and made a passel of friends selling newspapers and Racing Forms to the morning crowd from his newsstand at 10th and K streets.
""Even though I never had any memories of him, it makes me feel good to know he made a lot of other people happy,'' said Sweet, 30, in a telephone interview from her home in Volant, Pa.
It wasn't until Scheel died last spring that friends in Sacramento realized how little they knew. They saw him every day but didn't even know his last name.
They also didn't know that he had stashed away $67,000 in cash in an old McDonald's carry-out bag, a cache that Sweet will inherit as his closest living relative.
The money will help Sweet, the mother of three, and her husband, Jay, a correctional officer, buy a new house. It will help her get in touch with some of her father's 22 cousins who turned up as authorities searched for heirs to Scheel's humbly wrapped riches.
But it won't buy her the chance to know why her father disappeared and was never heard from again, she said.
It became apparent that Charlie Scheel didn't want to be found when coroner's investigators turned up his worldly belongings in his $150-a-month furnished room in the Golden Hotel where he died of heart disease last May.
The news vendor left behind some photos, a penknife -- and the bag full of cash, mostly $50 and $100 bills. He left no will, no identification and very little to help investigators track down any relatives. In fact, he left behind a phony age, which made the search even harder.
It was a Sacramento missing-heirs investigative firm that broke the months of dead-end leads and false claims to Scheel's estate that followed his death.
One of the investigators, John March Jr., heard from one of Scheel's customers that the friendly newsman may have been from Pennsylvania. A check through Pennsylvania records revealed that Scheel had been arrested at the Pittsburgh airport in March 1957 -- for deserting his pregnant wife. He was not convicted.
Pennsylvania marriage records indicated that Charles Scheel married Sweet's mother, Mary Agnes Scheel, in December 1956. Scheel was a 29-year-old bus driver from Sharon, Pa., and his bride a 40-year-old divorcee struggling to raise three children. Sweet has their wedding photos, her only mementoes of her father besides his penknife.
""They only dated a few months before they were married and he left a few months after that,'' said Sweet, who learned that bit of information from her great-aunt and uncle. ""But they said he would've done anything for my mom.''
His devotion, it seems, wasn't enough for his wife.
""My mother wasn't the easiest person to get along with,'' Sweet said. ""I kind of understand why he left. . . . She was very hard on all of us.''
Her mother worked at a Westinghouse electrical plant to support Sweet and her half-sisters and brother and often came home tired and short-tempered, Sweet said.
When she asked about her father, the only thing her mother said was that she wished she could locate him in California so she could get child support from him. They never divorced.
Sweet often wanted to look for her father, but said loyalty to her mother postponed that dream.
""I have always believed you should honor your parents,'' Sweet said. ''Because of that, I was there for her and I stuck by her.''
Mary Agnes Scheel died of cancer in Pennsylvania last April, but Sweet didn't even have time to start looking for her father -- he died two weeks later.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge declared Sweet his rightful legal heir on May 9. She will receive a check for his estate, minus $2,011 for his funeral, $1,100 for his burial, small debts to three local newspapers, attorney's fees and a finder's fee paid to March's firm, said Ramona Nunes, a county administrator's caseworker.
Sweet is planning to come to Sacramento next spring and visit her father's old stamping grounds with her children -- Terry, 14, Heather, 11, and Angela, 8. She wants to talk to his friends and learn more about Charlie Scheel, whose name she heard for the first time less than a year ago when March's firm contacted her.
I recently went to the local library and searched the Sacramento Bee for articles regarding Charlie Scheel. I have an active library card so the searches are free & I was able to obtain several articles regarding Charlie's death, his estate & a story on how his daughter who never got to know her father.
(NOTE THIS IS A VERY LONG POST)
NEWS VENDOR'S 'FAMILY' FEELS THE LOSSShow Details
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - May 9, 1987Browse Issues
For the first time in a quarter of a century, Charles ""Chuck'' Scheel didn't show up for work Friday.
After he failed to arrive at his homemade newsstand at 10th and K streets at 4:30 a.m., police were notified. Officers found the body of the popular news vendor a few doors away in his $150-a-month hotel room.
An autopsy showed that Scheel died of heart disease.
""He was sort of like a fixture on the K Street Mall,'' said Sacramento Police Lt. Joe Barnes.
For the rest of the day, dozens of Scheel's friends and acquaintances clustered around the newsstand and reminisced.
""You could set your clock by him,'' said 68-year-old James Holligan, a retired railroad worker who visited with Scheel nearly every day. ""Rain or shine, he was always here.''
Scheel, 76, lived alone in the Golden Hotel, a half block from where he worked. A familiar sight to thousands of Sacramentans, he flashed a smile and offered a pleasant greeting to virtually everyone who walked past.
His customers were his family.
But when he wasn't working, he kept to himself.
""Nobody seems to know much about him,'' said Sid Friedman, 68, who works the afternoon shift at the newsstand. ""I've known him for 22 years, and I didn't know his last name 'til today. All I know is that he never took a day off.''
""He was unfailingly cheerful,'' said Walter Gunnison, a retired newsman who bought papers from Scheel every morning. ""He never objected to making change. He had one of those coin holders on his belt. You could give him a twenty and he'd change it without a murmur, taking pride in the nice crisp bills he always had on hand.
""He always wore brown. It looked like the same outfit -- brown shirt and maybe brown pants. Whenever he drank coffee he removed his teeth. He looked different without teeth, but don't we all?''
Police Officer Ken Moon, who walks a beat in the neighborhood, remembered Scheel as an avid sports fan.
""He loved talking about the (San Francisco) Giants,'' the policeman said. ''Every morning there was this ritual here with Manuel Joseph.''
Joseph, a 75-year-old appliance store owner, said he always stopped for a paper and conversation.
""We used to kid the hell out of each other,'' Joseph said. ""I'm a Dodgers fan. He was a die-hard Giants fan. Every time the Giants lost, he'd be there with a newspaper over his face.''
Ray Turner, manager of the Glendale Federal Savings branch on the corner, looked out for Scheel. On rainy mornings, he let the news vendor stack his papers in the building's recessed entrance.
""Every morning I'd give him a cup of coffee,'' Turner said. ""He always took three sugars and a stir. And he was a real prince of a fellow. The bums would come up and panhandle him, but he never lost his temper.''
But Scheel also was an enigma. He was a sports fan, but he worked every day -- including Christmas -- and never attended sports events. Even his closest acquaintances didn't know his last name.
He did a large curbside business. Going-to-work traffic sometimes would back up on 10th Street as customers stopped for their morning papers. In addition to major California newspapers and the New York Times, he sold up to 50 copies a day of the Daily Racing Form.
""He was a loving person. . . . Everybody around here loved him,'' said Mike Matosevich, a K Street tailor and clothing store owner.
Matosevich said the news that Scheel was 76 years old shocked him almost as much as word of his death.
""He looked like he was 50,'' Matosevich said.
Little was known about Scheel's background.
""He mentioned in passing once that he had worked on a farm in Michigan,'' Gunnison recalled. ""He also mentioned a stretch in the Navy.''
Coroner's officials said he had no known relatives.
His body lay unclaimed Friday night in the county morgue.
Caption: 1 PHOTO(S)Special to The BeeNews vendor Charles Scheel had a smile for those who passed his newsstand at 10th and K streets in Sacramento.
NEWS VENDOR LEFT $67,000
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - May 15, 1987Browse Issues
A man who spent quarter of a century hawking newspapers on a downtown Sacramento street corner left $67,000 in cash in a paper sack in his $150-a- month hotel room when he died last week.
But the Sacramento County public administrator's staff said 76-year-old Charles Scheel left no known heirs and the money may end up in the state treasurer's Bureau of Unclaimed Property.
""If his family is located, the money will be turned over to his heirs,'' said Ramona Nunes of the public administrator's office. ""But so far, we haven't been able to find any relatives.''
Nunes said her office made arrangements with a funeral home for services Saturday morning.
A loner who kept to himself when he wasn't peddling papers at 10th and K streets, Scheel worked seven days a week -- even Christmas and New Year's -- and always had a pleasant greeting for his customers.
He was found dead in his room at the Golden Hotel when he failed to show up for work last Friday. An autopsy showed that he had died of heart disease.
Nunes said several hundred dollars were found in his wallet and pockets of his shirt and trousers. But the bulk of the $67,504.80 found in his room| consisted of $100 and $50 bills stuffed in a white paper McDonald's sack on the floor next to his bed.
She said the discovery wasn't revealed publicly until Thursday because the public administrator's staff wanted to first complete its initial inventory of Scheel's possessions.
""The last time we had a case like this we had people just coming out of the woodwork . . . calling us,'' Nunes said.
The $1,865 cost of Scheel's funeral services will be deducted from his estate, as will any claims filed by creditors, Nunes said.
""I knew he never spent anything,'' said Ray Turner, manager of the Glendale Federal Savings branch on the corner where Scheel sold his newspapers. ""He'd buy a new pair of pants and a shirt now and then. But outside of that, he was very thrifty.
""It surprises me that he had that much money, but at the same time it doesn't surprise me,'' Turner said. ""That's Charlie.''
Nunes said it is conceivable that Scheel acquired the $67,000 solely from his news business. ""If you sell papers for more than 20 years and live as frugally as he did, it seems possible that he could have accumulated that over time.''
She said efforts to determine if he was receiving any sort of government pension had been unsuccessful. Her office has been unable to come up with a Social Security number for Scheel.
""Where did he get the money? I don't know,'' Nunes said. ""Your guess is as good as mine.''
Scheel, who always wore a brown shirt and brown pants at his newsstand, will be buried in a blue suit after an open casket service at 10 a.m. Saturday at N.G. Culjis & Son Chapel of the Valley, 1525 Alhambra Blvd. Interment will be at Camellia Memorial Lawn Cemetery. ""He's going to wear a good quality burial suit that goes for about $88 retail,'' said one of the directors at Culjis. ""It's a navy blue suit. He's going to have a nice service.''
NEWS VENDOR HAD SECRET PAST
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - January 25, 1988Browse Issues
When Sacramento news vendor Charles ""Chuck'' Scheel paid occasional visits to relatives in Pennsylvania, he reportedly flashed a wad of $100 bills.
Yet he lived a meager existence in Sacramento, eating fast food and occupying a bare $150-a-month hotel room until his death from heart disease last May 8.
Scheel left $67,000 in cash in a white paper McDonald's sack but no will -- and no hint that he was survived by a daughter and 22 cousins in Pennsylvania.
In fact, he gave a phony age. When coroner's investigators sorted through Scheel's belongings, they found papers listing his age as 76 -- wrong, it turns out, by 17 years.
He was 59.
Though Scheel hawked newspapers in downtown Sacramento for a quarter of a century, friends and acquaintances knew little of his background.
A familiar sight at his 10th and K streets newsstand, he was unfailingly cheerful, offering a friendly greeting to virtually everyone who walked past. But he never mentioned his family.
""He was a mystery man, very much so,'' John C. March Jr., a probate investigator who tracks down missing heirs, said in an interview last week. ''Nearly everyone we interviewed said the same thing: They didn't know much about him.
""Selling newspapers was his sole occupation, although we've heard stories from some of his friends that he might have made book,'' March said. ""When he'd visit Pittsburgh, he'd (have) quite a bit of money. Hundred dollar bills.
""He sold racing forms here in town at his stand, so we thought that might be a natural tie-in. All speculation but really interesting.
""Being a newspaper vendor is a pretty good cover. He was pretty well hidden that way. But he didn't change his name.''
Other mysterious sides to Scheel's life:
** None of Scheel's cousins knew that he had married and fathered a daughter, Jacquelyn Sweet, now 30 and also living in Pennsylvania.
** She had no inkling of her father's whereabouts and was surprised to learn she had cousins living nearby.
** It isn't known why Scheel never contacted his father and stepmother -- Pennsylvania farmers -- after leaving for California in 1957.
""He never wrote after he left,'' March said. ""Not a card. Not a thing. And they parted, apparently, in friendly circumstances.''
** Scheel, driving a black Cadillac, visited several cousins in 1956, saying he was leaving for Sacramento to open a car wash. Yet, he apparently remained in Pennsylvania for about a year after that, marrying, fathering a daughter and getting arrested for disturbing the peace March 1, 1957, by police in Pittsburgh.
** It isn't known where he got the $14,000 in cash that police at the Pittsburgh airport found in his pockets when he was arrested. ""They hauled him in, but couldn't keep him,'' March said.
** Also unknown was why Scheel gave a false age. ""When we found that the date of birth we started with was inaccurate by 17 years, the only thing we could think of was he might have been drawing Social Security, but it turns out he had no Social Security account,'' March said.
""At one point, we thought that he might have assumed someone else's name and birth date,'' he said. But that was a false assumption. ""We're now convinced he is Charles Scheel,'' March said.
Ramona Nunes of the Sacramento County public administrator's office said Scheel's real birth date of March 30, 1928, turned up in a check of FBI files. The FBI, it turned out, had received copies of his fingerprints when he enlisted in the Navy in 1946.
Nunes said the Scheel estate is expected to be settled this spring after his daughter's lawyer, Stephen A. Brandenburger Jr., files documents verifying that Jacquelyn Sweet is his natural daughter and primary heir to the estate.
Brandenburger declined to discuss the case, saying Sweet indicated that she didn't want publicity until the estate was settled.
Claims against the estate include $2,011 for the funeral, $1,100 for the burial and $70 to publish a death notice in the Daily Recorder. His newsstand ran up debts of $400 to The Bee and $54 to The Union.
""What made this case unusual is that we didn't know anything about (Scheel),'' Nunes said. ""We didn't have zip. Even the date of birth that we thought we had was wrong.''
Until last November, March said, he also knew little about Scheel. It was then that he learned from one of Scheel's customers that the newspaper vendor may have been from Pennsylvania.
""Based on that, we traced his family through Pennsylvania vital statistics records,'' March said. One thing led to another, and from the arrest record March learned that Scheel had been married.
""So we searched Pennsylvania for marriage records and found one,'' March said. ""Then we traced 30 years forward and found his wife, who had died two weeks -- exactly two weeks to the day -- before he did. I don't think she died of a broken heart.
''It came as a shock to us when this new information came back on his arrest and marriage,'' he said. ""None of the cousins knew he was married. None of them knew he had a child.
''And the child doesn't know any of the cousins. And she's chomping at the bit -- she wants to contact them and ask about her dad. But we're keeping them away because they're adverse claimants at this point.''
Once lawyer's and finder's fees are paid, Jacquelyn Sweet and her family will be left with about three-quarters of the estate, March estimated. ''Although it's not a fortune, it's a substantial amount of money that she and her husband can use,'' he said.
Caption: 1 PHOTO(S)Special to The Bee/Walter GunnisonCharles Scheel was a familiar sight at his 10th and K streets newsstand.
MONEY CAN'T BUY MEMORIES OF FATHER SHE NEVER KNEW
Sacramento Bee, The (CA) (Published as SACRAMENTO BEE) - July 26, 1988
Jacquelyn Sweet never knew her father.
Her mother, a hardworking, bitter woman, almost never spoke of the man who deserted them six months before Sweet was born.
While Sweet was growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania and wondering what her dad was like, hundreds of people in Sacramento were greeting him every day with a 'good morning' as they bought the day's news.
They knew him as eternally friendly Charlie Scheel, a man who loved baseball, never took a day off and made a passel of friends selling newspapers and Racing Forms to the morning crowd from his newsstand at 10th and K streets.
""Even though I never had any memories of him, it makes me feel good to know he made a lot of other people happy,'' said Sweet, 30, in a telephone interview from her home in Volant, Pa.
It wasn't until Scheel died last spring that friends in Sacramento realized how little they knew. They saw him every day but didn't even know his last name.
They also didn't know that he had stashed away $67,000 in cash in an old McDonald's carry-out bag, a cache that Sweet will inherit as his closest living relative.
The money will help Sweet, the mother of three, and her husband, Jay, a correctional officer, buy a new house. It will help her get in touch with some of her father's 22 cousins who turned up as authorities searched for heirs to Scheel's humbly wrapped riches.
But it won't buy her the chance to know why her father disappeared and was never heard from again, she said.
It became apparent that Charlie Scheel didn't want to be found when coroner's investigators turned up his worldly belongings in his $150-a-month furnished room in the Golden Hotel where he died of heart disease last May.
The news vendor left behind some photos, a penknife -- and the bag full of cash, mostly $50 and $100 bills. He left no will, no identification and very little to help investigators track down any relatives. In fact, he left behind a phony age, which made the search even harder.
It was a Sacramento missing-heirs investigative firm that broke the months of dead-end leads and false claims to Scheel's estate that followed his death.
One of the investigators, John March Jr., heard from one of Scheel's customers that the friendly newsman may have been from Pennsylvania. A check through Pennsylvania records revealed that Scheel had been arrested at the Pittsburgh airport in March 1957 -- for deserting his pregnant wife. He was not convicted.
Pennsylvania marriage records indicated that Charles Scheel married Sweet's mother, Mary Agnes Scheel, in December 1956. Scheel was a 29-year-old bus driver from Sharon, Pa., and his bride a 40-year-old divorcee struggling to raise three children. Sweet has their wedding photos, her only mementoes of her father besides his penknife.
""They only dated a few months before they were married and he left a few months after that,'' said Sweet, who learned that bit of information from her great-aunt and uncle. ""But they said he would've done anything for my mom.''
His devotion, it seems, wasn't enough for his wife.
""My mother wasn't the easiest person to get along with,'' Sweet said. ""I kind of understand why he left. . . . She was very hard on all of us.''
Her mother worked at a Westinghouse electrical plant to support Sweet and her half-sisters and brother and often came home tired and short-tempered, Sweet said.
When she asked about her father, the only thing her mother said was that she wished she could locate him in California so she could get child support from him. They never divorced.
Sweet often wanted to look for her father, but said loyalty to her mother postponed that dream.
""I have always believed you should honor your parents,'' Sweet said. ''Because of that, I was there for her and I stuck by her.''
Mary Agnes Scheel died of cancer in Pennsylvania last April, but Sweet didn't even have time to start looking for her father -- he died two weeks later.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge declared Sweet his rightful legal heir on May 9. She will receive a check for his estate, minus $2,011 for his funeral, $1,100 for his burial, small debts to three local newspapers, attorney's fees and a finder's fee paid to March's firm, said Ramona Nunes, a county administrator's caseworker.
Sweet is planning to come to Sacramento next spring and visit her father's old stamping grounds with her children -- Terry, 14, Heather, 11, and Angela, 8. She wants to talk to his friends and learn more about Charlie Scheel, whose name she heard for the first time less than a year ago when March's firm contacted her.