30 years ago today - Apr 15, 1991

Charles Edward 'Charlie Brown' Artman, dies. His obituary in the DESERET NEWS calls him "the first true hippie to confuse Utahns." Artman dressed in a black robe with a large, brass "ankh" symbol around his neck. As a social and environmental activist he was arrested in Salt Lake City twenty-one times but never convicted of anything. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s he asked to be baptized into the LDS church. He was repeatedly refused but spent ten to fifteen hours daily doing genealogy research at the Salt Lake genealogical library. In 1968 he organized a "love in" in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Later he worked through the Alameda Street Church to help troubled, lower-classed persons. In the mid 1970s he spent three years with Guru Maharaji, the fourteen-year-old living master who claimed to be Krishna himself. He finally succeeded in getting baptized on May 5, 1985. He spent the last years of his life going through the Oakland temple doing work for his ancestors.