Charline Rugel was a native Texan, born on January 8, 1928, in Aleman, Texas. She lived in the German Valley region of central Texas, then moved with her family to Harlingen, Texas, on the Texas coast, where she graduated from Harlingen High School. She attended college at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) in San Marcos, Texas, where she met her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rugel, whom she married on September 17, 1946.

She was a loving and supportive wife and mother to her husband and four children. The family moved throughout Texas and finally to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, while her husband pursued his career with the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company. Charline and Buddy traveled extensively around the world before and after retiring to their second home in Destin, Florida, in 1987. After her husband’s death in 1991, Charline continued traveling, circumnavigated the world multiple times, and receiving what she called her “Ph.D. in the World.” She loved learning about science and nature, was full of life, faith and the pursuit of beauty and wonder, which she shared infectiously with her children, grandchildren, and anyone with whom she came in contact. 

She is preceded in death by her parents, Charlie and Lillian Angermann, her brother, Cecil Angermann, her husband, Buddy Rugel, and their daughter, Laura Rugel Glise. She leaves her three children, Mary Rugel Santulli, Charles Edward Rugel III, and Kathleen Rugel, as well as her five grandchildren, Jamie Rugel Naylor, Sayward Glise Cavallaro, Orion Gates, Laura Gates, and Elizabeth Rugel Langston, four great-grandchildren, and many nieces, nephews, and extended family, who loved her deeply.

A private family service will be held at graveside in San Marcos, Texas, at a later date. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorials be sent in her memory to Doctors Without Borders, the Wounded Warrior Project, or The Salvation Army.