Charlie started his story with the family history of both his mother and father's families. The family history of his mother was told very succinctly - little is known. His father's family is very aware of its history, which reaches back to 1698 when Hans Zimmermann immigrated. Hans was financially successful and bought property from William Penn for a farm and home in Chester County. Apparently William Penn's record keepers preferred to use English and changed "Zimmermann" to "Carpenter" on the land patent. The family name has been Carpenter since. A long tradition of names being changed by officials in the US may have started with Charlie's family.
The Carpenter family expanded across the US to the midwest, which is where Charlie was born and grew up. Charlie's father married while still in law school, and had a successful practice. However, he felt he missed something by marrying early, so encouraged Charlie to take a year off before going to college. Charlie was more than happy to spend the year skiing the Rockies, working as a bartender. Charlie then worked at a bank for a year. He found the experience boring, so he became an event planner for a restaurant he worked at while skiing. One of the events he planned required him to work with a demanding young woman who called constantly with demands and issues. Charlie grew to hate the sound of her voice when she called. He finally met Tanya at the event. They were married two months after meeting.
Both Tanya and Charlie maintained careers until they moved to Cincinnati when Tanya's job required it. At the same time Tanya was pregnant. Charlie's grandfather was concerned that Charlie, as the only Carpenter of his generation, have a son so the name would continue. Luckily Sam was born, meeting the demand, since their second child they is a daughter. Tanya's job involved almost constant travel so Charlie became his nanny for five years.
After his spell as nanny Charlie looked for a new job and ended up managing a farm. This had a certain irony since Charlie's father always wanted to be a farmer. He bought the land but was not knowledgeable enough to operate it, so on a handshake he rented the farm to a local family. That hand shake deal still persists to this day. Operating the farm for a wealthy family led Charlie to managing family trusts, which is his current career.