Deaths: Charles Sanna-- Part 4: Parents Were Italian Immigrants, Served in WW II

Charles Albert Sanna was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 9,1917.  Both parents were Italian immigrants.  His father came to the U.S. at age 13 and later managed a dairy company in Philadelphia, and ice cream company in Washington and a gelatin operation in Chicago.

The family eventually settled in Madison, Wisconsin where Charles graduated high school and attended the University of Wisconsin and received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1939.  He joined the Navy two years later and rose through the ranks to become a superintendent of submarine construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

While there, he met Margaret "Peggy" McGee and they married in 1946.

After WW II, Sanna's father convinced him to join the family dairy business, then known as Sanna Dairy Engineers.  This proved crucial to the company as he designed a 60-foot-tall stainless steel dryer in Menominee  that powdered milk and died eggs.

Even though his postwar career was mostly involved with dairy, he never forgot the men who served on his submarines during the war.  I'll write about that in my Tattooed On Your Soul: World War II blog later today.

--Cooter