Longboat man remembered for military achievements

A brash young intern on his way to a lifetime filled with military and business achievements made a bold move in interviewing for a job early in his career.

After the interview, he asked the interviewer out to lunch, then drinks, then dinner.

It worked out. They were married 55 years.

“I was working in New York at McKinsey and Co., and he was a summer intern,” recalled Betty Ewing from their Longboat Key home. “After he left the U.S. Army, he was studying at Harvard Business School.

“My job was to interview him and afterward he had the audacity to ask me out to lunch. I said ‘I am sorry. I don’t do lunch.’ He said: ‘How about drinks?’ I said ‘Yes.’ After our drink, he said: ‘How about dinner?’”

The young intern, named Charles Boal Ewing Jr., passed away Sept. 7 of heart failure at the age of 86.

His lengthy list of lifetime achievements is filled with accomplishments and accolades. His achievements as a family man are towering, too, according to his wife and daughters.

“My dad was on a totally different plain than all of us,” said his 46-year-old daughter, Sarah “Sally” Ewing Sagarese.

Sally struggled with dyslexia when she was growing up but her father helped her deal with it, she said.

“He would take so much time to help me read and do my homework,” she said. “He was so kind and gentle with his understanding. He’ll always be my hero. He really was one of a kind.”

His daughter, Cynthia Miller, 52, said she had a special friendship with her father. They loved to golf and banter back and forth with his dry wit evoking “some good belly laughs” even today.

“He’s always with me,” she said. “He’s a part of everything I do.”

His family will always remember his kindness and multifaceted personally, said his wife.

“I’ve been thinking about how he should be remembered, and I guess (the word I would use is) amazing,” she said. “There were so many facets to his personality and life, and only in the most kind and admirable terms.

“He provided me and his children with a wonderful, wonderful life and we are eternally grateful,” she said.