Charles Henry Rgnonti

Charles “Chuck” Henry Rgnonti (94) died of natural causes on Saturday, April 19, 2025. He was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Patricia Ann Rgnonti; parents, Harmke and Charles Rgnonti; and brothers, Frank and Henry. He leaves behind his two daughters, Jean (Tim) Watts and Gail (Rob) Rutan; grandchildren, Eric (Amanda) Watts, Shannon (Tony) Watts, Hayden (Sequoia) Rutan, and Sawyer (Haley) Rutan; and brother/best friend, Fred (Carol) Rgnonti, as well as many nieces and nephews.

Chuck was born in Farmington, MN in 1930 to immigrant parents from Sicily and the Netherlands. His father’s original surname, Raymondi, was misspelled at Ellis Island. A first-generation American, Chuck grew up on a farm in Lakeville, MN in a home without electricity or indoor plumbing. With an intense love for airplanes and an equally intense dislike of farming, he enlisted in the United State Air Force just two days after turning eighteen. He would spend 23 years in the military, and would work in aviation for the rest of his life.

Chuck’s career in the Air Force began with Basic Training in Lackner, Texas, followed by one year in Panama, eight months in Trinidad, and a few months in Tennessee. By the age of 20, he was deployed to the Korean War, where he served as a Flight Engineer on a C-119. He was the youngest man in his troop. Reaching the rank of Staff Sergeant, he flew every day, including on many combat missions. He never kept track of how many combat missions he went on, but he would sometimes tell of the times his aircraft was hit. While serving in Korea, he lived in a tent in Japan. This experience was his life-long excuse to never go camping again.

After Korea, and at his family’s urging, Chuck left the Air Force to help with the farm. Torn between his love of the Air Force and his duties to his family, he would later say that this decision to leave the Air Force was his only regret in life, as it kept him from attaining the rank of Officer. After just eight months, he re-enlisted at a lower rank.

Some good came from his return home, however: it was during this time that he met his future wife, Patricia “Pat”, at Antlers Park in Lakeville, MN. On a night out with his friends, Chuck met a group of four girls and he, as he would recall, “picked the prettiest one.” The one he picked, Pat, had come down from Saint Paul due to Antlers Park’s lax enforcement of the legal drinking age. Chuck and Pat’s first date was on New Year’s Eve. He rejoined the Air Force in March and the two corresponded with letters and visits for the next few years while Chuck went to flight engineer school and was stationed in Morocco. They married on October 13, 1956.

Once married, Chuck and Pat lived in several places including Arkansas (where they had their first daughter, Jean, in 1959); Ruislip, England (where they had their second daughter, Gail, in 1962), and Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he lived for three years before deploying again. In 1966, Chuck was sent to Vietnam for one year, where he served as crew chief for a fleet of aircraft. His wife and daughters lived in Saint Paul during that time, waiting for letters and shipping large boxes of homemade chocolate chip cookies to him and his troop. He would laughingly recall that the cookies arrived in broken pieces and he and his troop would eat every last crumb.

After his tour in Vietnam, the family was stationed in Tacoma, Washington for four years. During his “free time” he managed the local Aero Club and owned a Cessna-150. He taught Pat to fly, “just in case of an emergency.” While in Washington, Chuck and Pat enjoyed owning a boat and taking their family to Puget Sound in the summer, and sledding at Mt. Rainier in the winter. In 1969, Chuck completed his bachelor’s degree in Business Management at the University of Omaha. Chuck was immensely proud of his accomplishment of being the first of his family to graduate from high school and the first to earn a college degree.

In 1971, Chuck made the difficult decision to retire from the Air Force as a Senior Master Sergeant. While he loved the Air Force and still had the opportunity and wish to attain the rank of Officer, he decided to put his family first. Chuck would later explain, “Everything we did pointed to the girls. We had to do things that suited them, not us.”

Chuck moved the family back to Minnesota to give his girls a chance to stay in the same schools throughout high school, and used his training to start up his own fixed-base operator company, G&R Aviation Service, at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie. Chuck worked out of Flying Cloud for two decades, “retired” very briefly in his 60s, and promptly resumed building and working on aircraft in his Lakeville hanger until well into his late eighties. Chuck will be remembered as an exceedingly involved parent and grandfather who was immensely proud of his entire family. He was always available at a moment's notice to pick up a grandkid from a practice or an event and he enjoyed attending their plays, games, and concerts.

Although he never reached the rank of Officer in the Air Force, he worked tirelessly and selflessly throughout his life, and held himself to a very high standard. He was a lifelong weightlifter and a daily practitioner of intermittent fasting (before it was a thing). Though he would eat ice cream almost every day of his life, Chuck made sure he would still fit into his Air Force uniform by trying it on every year or so. Chuck lived a full and long life, which he devoted to his family. He will be greatly missed.

During the last five months of his life, Chuck lived in a residential facility at Southview Acres, where he was treated with great respect by their caring staff. Following Pat’s death in late 2021, Chuck was able to continue living in his home of fifty years with the help of his family and three angels: Amy Hondal, Joyce Bourassa, and Julia Bourassa, to whom we are forever grateful for their love, friendship and support of Chuck. Thank you to the many friends and family who visited Chuck during these last few years since his wife died. We appreciate you all. Thank you to the kind staff at Minnesota Hospice for their end-of-life care.

Chuck will be cremated and the family will hold a Memorial Service as well as Interment at Fort Snelling sometime this July or August. All are welcome, so please check back at this site for future information regarding time and date. Please sign up for updates below.