 Lobingier's paternal grandparents settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, but Charles was born in Lanark, Illinois on 30 April 1866.He graduated from high school in Hebron, Nebraska, and he also taught school in that area before entering the University of Nebraska in 1884.Initially, he spent a year at the university's Latin School, where he was a classmate of Roscoe Pound.