Charles C. Rankin, who served as a Douglas County judge for nearly two decades, died Sunday at age 91.

“He was a very kindly man,” said Mike Elwell, who succeeded Rankin as Douglas County probate judge in the mid-1970s. “I feel he treated people with respect and was gentle in his administration of justice.”

Rankin, widely known as “Charlie,” was a World War II veteran and a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. Starting in 1954, he was elected to nine two-year terms as probate judge – handling estates, juvenile matters, adoptions, traffic violations and some criminal cases.

Elwell described Rankin as a history enthusiast and a booster of programs for troubled juveniles, including Achievement Place, for which he once served as a board member.

Rankin

Former District Court Judge Ralph King remembered practicing law in front of Rankin starting in the mid-1950s. Back then, Ran-kin held court in an informal office space in the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Mass.

“His office was filled with secretaries and clerks, and then when it was time to hold court, everybody had to stop working,” King said. “There was one desk sitting up high. … He presided in a very judicial manner, but the courtroom facilities were just kind of casual.”

Lawrence resident George Allen, 91, said he graduated with Rankin from Kansas University law school in 1938. Allen recalled visiting Rankin once about 40 years ago, after Allen’s teenage daughter was in an automobile accident and a bottle of sloe gin was found in the grass nearby.

• Obit: Charles C. Rankin

“He didn’t threaten her with any retaliation,” Allen said. “He lectured her, and the lecture stuck with her, and she wasn’t in any more trouble.”

Rankin lived for many years at 801 Tenn. In recent years, he and his wife, Polly, lived at Brandon Woods Retirement Center.