Early Life, Family and Training Charles Heaney was born on August 22, 1897, in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin. He was the youngest of eight children born to John Toner Heaney and Elizabeth Ehricke Heaney. The family lived in an Irish community near Oconto Falls, where the vernacular architecture of the local houses and sheds would later find its way into his visual memory. After his father died, Charles moved with his mother and sister to Po…