Charles (“Charlie”) Leland Scott (1866–1924) was born in Channahon, Illinois, to Ben and Mary Scott. He moved with his parents to Sacramento, California and then to Cresswell, Oregon. He received his first Oregon Teaching Certificate in 1885 at the age of eighteen, and began teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in the rural Oregon community of Lynx Hollow. He taught school for the next 15 years, and also served as principal of Central School in Eugene, Oregon. In 1894 he was appointed to the office of Deputy Sheriff of Lane County, a position he held until 1898; he then ran unsuccessfully for the office of Sheriff, and shortly thereafter returned to teaching. Charles Scott met his future wife Mollie Brattain in 1887, when she was also teaching in a one-room schoolhouse outside of Creswell. They married in 1891 and had three children, Paul, Randall, and Ruth. The Scott family made their home first in Eugene and later in Springfield, Oregon. In 1900 Charles Scott began working as a bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Eugene; in 1909 he joined the First National Bank of Springfield as a cashier, and soon rose to become president of the Bank. He served as mayor of Springfield from 1913-1915 and was still working at the Bank when he had an attack of encephalitis lethargica ("sleeping sickness"). He eventually died of this illness at the age of 58. Mollie Scott died in 1955. Of the Scott children, Paul was a financial executive, Randall became a Methodist minister, and Ruth worked as a music critic for the publication Musical America . Randall married Ethel Wakefield, who was a drama coach at University High School in Eugene; their son Leland (“Lee”) Howard Scott had three children, Nancy, Sue, and David. Sue Scott became an actor and producer in radio and theater, and has been a cast member with "A Prairie Home Companion" since 1992. A cousin of Charles Scott's, Ruth Randall, was married to J. Sigfrid Edström, a Swedish sportsman and head of the International Olympic Committee in the 1940s and 1950s.
From the guide to the Scott Family papers, circa 1850-2004, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)
