By Jim Newell
Managing Editor, and
Jeanne Osentoski
Review Contributor
jnewell@mihomepaper.com
STERLING HEIGHTS — Turning 100 years old is a milestone to celebrate for anyone reaching that mark.
For longtime Lake Orion resident Charles “Chuck” Ring, Jr., who turned 100 years old on Feb. 14, he said he never thought about reaching triple digits. He chuckles when he adds “I just keep breathing.”
While Chuck is now in an assisted living home in Sterling Heights – he and his family moved to Lake Orion in 1974 and he sold his home in October 2024 – he reflected on his life, the memories he shared with his wife and offered a little advice for others.
Chuck, who was born in Kane, Illinois, remembers fondly how he met his wife, Vivian, the love of his life. There was square dancing every Friday night after he returned home from WWII, and a buddy talked him into going. He did not know how to dance, so he sat in the corner while everyone danced.
While sitting there he looked across the room and saw a beautiful woman walking toward him. The woman, Vivian, and her sister were professional dancers, both having gone to the Royal Oak School of Dance. Vivian approached and asked Chuck why he was just sitting in a chair instead of dancing? When he told her he didn’t know how to dance, she said she would show him and then led him onto the dance floor.
Chuck learned to dance but could only dance when he was dancing with Vivian. He started going to the dances every week, always dancing only with Vivian.
After one dance he asked her if she wanted to go for ice cream. Vivian asked her dad, who said yes. After eating their ice cream, Chuck told Vivian he had a question to ask her. She stopped him, telling him not to ask her there, so they got in the car and drove to her house.
Once there, she said that he could now ask. Chuck asked Vivian to marry him. She jumped into his arms and embraced him. She then ran into the house to tell her parents that she was getting married.
Chuck and Vivian married on Feb. 7, 1948 in Clawson, and raised three children – Theresa, Pamela and Charles III, and have five grandchildren. Vivian passed away in 2018, after 70 years of marriage.
The one thing that Chuck still wishes every day is that he could give Vivian a hug again.
The family moved from Troy to Lake Orion in 1974, purchasing a home on five acres. A man of great faith, Chuck belongs to St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lake Orion. He missed weekly mass only one time over a span of more than 60 years.

Chuck served in the Marine Corps during WWII for 33 months, from 1943-1946, after being drafted out of high school. He is a recipient of the Purple Heart and Good Conduct Medal.
While in stationed in Okinawa, he recalled coming upon a Japanese soldier wearing a red shirt with the letter ‘C’ on the front. Upon seeing Chuck, the man yelled “Don’t shoot. I’m from Michigan.” Chuck responded, “I’m from Michigan, too.”
An image that sticks with Chuck is seeing the bodies floating in the water. He said the Japanese soldiers forced woman and children off a cliff into the water far below.
Chuck is a member of American Legion Post 108 in Oxford and often attended many veterans events in Lake Orion and Oxford held by the American Legion or North Oakland VFW Post 334. People were often reminded that he served in the Marine Corps – not because Chuck boasted about his service but because he often wore a shirt that read, “Not as lean, not as mean, still a Marine.”
Chuck spent a majority of his working career with Canteen Corporation, working with vending machines, retiring after 27 years with the company.
In retirement, Chuck first worked for his son driving a truck making deliveries. Later, he answered an advertisement in The Lake Orion Review newspaper for a news boy. For many years, “the news boy” took current Lake Orion Review and Oxford Leader newspapers to area businesses for sale to the public, growing his paper route each week.
He made friends everywhere he went in the he Lake Orion and Oxford communities, often garnering a slice of pizza, ice cream, cookies or a soda while making his rounds delivering the papers and chatting it up with business owners.
Chuck often joked that he couldn’t rob a bank in Lake Orion or Oxford and get away with it because everyone knew him.
Service has always been a part of Chuck’s life. Chuck started in Boy Scouts in 1968 when his son joined the Cub Scouts in the Troy area, where he took a position as a Charter Representative, a position he’s held ever since. In 1976, Chuck and a few others started Troop 128 in Orion Township with only five scouts at the time.
In 2018, at age 93, Chuck was honored for 50 years of service to the Boy Scouts of America. A rare milestone that Denver Laabs, development director for the Boy Scouts Great Lakes Field Service Council at the time, said he has never seen presented in his 25 years with the Scouts.
Chuck said he did everything he wanted to do. He and his family traveled a lot, making yearly trips to Las Vegas to play Bingo for more than 30 years.
When asked what advice he could impart to others, he simply said, “Mind your own business.”