Charles Wentworth Bockway
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Bockway Family Headstone
Grave Marker of Charles W. Bockway
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
Charles Wentworth Bockway is our youngest stop on the tour. Charles was only 4 or 5 years when he contracted the Spanish Influenza. Though Charles would have been to young to participate in school, his siblings were not. The issue of keeping schools open or not was a debated topic during the pandemic. Some cities, such as New York City, opted to not close schools as it was the best way to monitor students. This also gave the city an opportunity to educate children about the pandemic, in hopes that they would pass this information on to their parents. Unfortunately, this was not the case in Huntington as cases swelled in the area. Local health officials closed down "the public schools, Marshall College, all theaters, revival meetings, billiard parlors, dance halls, and other crowded places" on October 8th in order to slow the spread of disease(2). Charles left this Earth sometime in October of 1918. He was the son of Frank Wallace Bockway and Minnie E Henderson Bockway and brother to Frank Wallace Bockway Jr., Beulah Gilbert Bockway Smith, and Henderson Augustus Bockway.
Sources
- Spreeuwenberg, Peter. Reassessing the Global Mortality Burden of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. American Journal of Epidemiology, ser. 2561-2567, vol. 187, no. 12. Published September 7th 2018. NCBI.
- Casto, James E.. "Deadly 1918 flu hit Huntington hard." The Herald-Dispatch (Huntington) May 1st 2009.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58499765/charles-wentworth-bockway
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58499765/charles-wentworth-bockway