Charles A. Callis was born Charles Albert Callis on May 4, 1865 in Dublin, Ireland, to John Callis and Susannah Charlotte Quilliam Callis. His father died when he was a boy. He was just ten years of age when he and his mother immigrated to America using loans from the Perpetual Emigration Fund sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Charles worked in the coal mines at Coalville, Utah. B. H. Roberts encouraged him to attend Sunday meetings. Charles served as a missionary for the LDS Church in Great Britain, including a number of months in his native Ireland. After returning to Coalville, he was elected to the state legislature, then studied law and became a member of the bar. He married Grace Elizabeth Pack in the early 1900s. In 1905, he was called to serve as a missionary in the Eastern States Mission of the LDS Church (the name was later changed to the Southern States Mission). Church leaders gave him permission to take his family with him. In August 1908, he was appointed mission president of the Southern States Mission and served for twenty-five years. Although he did not have time to practice law while serving as mission president, he was admitted to the Bar in South Carolina and Florida. This gave him access to social circles which he otherwise could not have entered. His wife was president of the Relief Societies of the LDS Church in the Southern States for nineteen years. On Oct. 6, 1933, Elder Callis was chosen as one of the Council of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ordained to that office October 14, 1933, by Heber J. Grant. He served as an Apostle until his death January 21, 1947, in Jacksonville, Florida.