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→Early life
At birth, Bliss was given the name Abraham Lincoln Bliss. He was called by the nickname "Link", which he detested. Accordingly, upon entering school, Bliss began calling himself Charles. Once, when he missed school due to an illness, a schoolteacher came to the Bliss home and asked to see Charles; Bliss' mother replied that she had no son by the name. Thereafter, Bliss convinced his mother to consent to the name change.
At the age of fourteen, Bliss left home and headed west, first to Illinois, and then to Iowa. In Iowa he was acquainted with Mormon elders and converted to that faith. He later moved with the Mormon Williams family to [[Wikipedia:Nauvoo, Illinois|Nauvoo, Illinois]], where he lived with them as a member of their family. Near the age of eighteen he set out west again. By the time he arrived at Ogden, Utah, he had worn out the two pairs of shoes he owned; he had walked most of the trip, and all of it from Omaha, Nebraska onward. For a time he herded sheep in Morgan County, before heading to Salt Lake City, where he got a job with an agency which enlarged photographs.<ref>Allen, Maud Bliss. ''Biography of My Father, Charles Henry Bliss''. Unpublished manuscript.</ref>
Bliss married Matilda Sophia Wilcox on [[April 17]], [[1879]] in Salt Lake City. Soon after, the Mormon church called him on a mission to the Southern states.<ref>Allen, Maud Bliss. ''Biography of My Father, Charles Henry Bliss''. Unpublished manuscript.</ref> Upon returning to Utah, he attended the University of Utah, and there became disillusioned with Mormonism. Bliss and his wife, who remained a devout follower, later divorced, and Bliss returned to his home state of Indiana.<ref>Information provided by E. C. Bliss, Bliss' grandson.</ref>
Bliss settled in Kokomo, Indiana, where he taught school and edited a local newspaper. He remarried, on [[February 20]], [[1892]], to Sara Gertrude Herman.<ref>Information provided by C. Bozeman, a descendant of C. H. Bliss.</ref>
