December 20, 1857 – April 19, 1922. Father of H.P. Meyer — the generation that came west.
Herman Charles Meyer was born in Allegheny City, across the river from Pittsburgh, in 1857, and grew up around Pittsburgh and Butler County in the iron-and-steel heart of western Pennsylvania. He married Annie Wilhemina Speaker in April 1885; their eldest documented son, Howard Phillip — H.P. — arrived the next year, followed by Clarence and three more.
By 1910 the family had left Pennsylvania for Southern California, settling around Escondido and San Diego. H.P. had already gone on to the Imperial Valley to start Imperial Hardware. Charles lived out his last years in Escondido and Pacific Beach and died there in April 1922, at sixty-four; he was buried in Escondido.
The record of him is thin — census lines and a couple of small-town newspaper notices — but he is the hinge between Pennsylvania and the Imperial Valley, the man whose move west put the next three generations of the family in California.