Beloved 'Peanuts' Comic Strip Creator, Charles M. Schulz's Home Was Destroyed in the California Wildfires

News Staff : Oct 18, 2017
CBN News

Schulz was a devout Christian, who often included messages about the Bible and God in his cartoon strip.

(Santa Rosa, CA)—[CBN News] The death toll in the recent California wildfires now stands at 40. More than 6,000 homes and businesses have also been destroyed by the raging fires. (Photo: Charles Schulz, the creator of the "Peanuts" characters, poses with Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Snoopy as his star is placed on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996/Reuters/via TheAtlantic.com)

Now, word comes that the Santa Rosa home of Peanuts cartoon creator Charles M. Schulz was also burned to the ground. The house, according to reports, was completely destroyed.

Schulz's son Monte Schulz told Entertainment Weekly that his stepmother, Jean Schulz, was able to evacuate safely.

Schulz, the beloved cartoonist and creator of the Peanuts comic strip which ran in 2,600 newspapers from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, lived in the Santa Rosa house from the 1970s until his death in 2000.

"It's the house he died in," Monte said. "All of their memorabilia and everything is all gone."

Thankfully for Peanuts fans, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, which is also located in Santa Rosa, remains safe and sound.

Schulz is still revered as an influential figure in the community. The airport is named the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. A recreation of the beloved character of Snoopy, flying on his doghouse as he often did in the comic strip or in the Peanuts TV specials, greets visitors to the airport daily.

Schulz was a devout Christian, who often included messages about the Bible and God in his cartoon strip. This caught the attention of writer Jonathan Merritt, who wrote about Schulz's faith in an article for The Atlantic titled The Spirituality of Snoopy: How the faith of Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, shaped his work.

Merritt notes in the article that later in Schulz's career, the religious references came so frequently that pastors and religious publications regularly requested permission to reprint Peanuts strips, which Schulz almost always granted.

Sources: ChristianHeadlines.com, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic.