Charlie Brock
Charles (Charlie) Henderson Brock was a decorated military veteran of the 3188th Quartermaster Service Company and was awarded the EAME (European African Middle Eastern) Service Medal, American Theater Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. Charlie was born on March 20th, 1917, Lafayette Alabama. His father, Love Brock, was a farmer and could not read or write; he was most likely a sharecropper for a man named George Hughley who also happened to be Black. His mother was Ethel Brock and his sister was Mary Rosa. He went to school until 5th grade and would get a job as a yard worker while his father was not living with them in the home. In 1940 he was married to Mary Torbert, and they sadly got divorced after 13 years in 1953. Before being drafted into the military he worked as a janitor in the Kappa Sigma fraternity house. His job entailed laundry, pressing, clothes dyeing and other janitorial duties, he was paid $240. During WWII he lived in Atlanta for a little while before being drafted. He went into active service on May 5th, 1943, and he arrived in the European Theater of Operations on June 12th, 1944, and stayed there until May 12th, 1946, working as a laundry operator. At one point during his military service, he was admitted into the hospital and was treated with penicillin. While he was there, he earned the aforementioned awards. Later in his life his father passed for an unknown reason; the house was inherited by his mother Ethel Brock. In 1948 Ethel Brock gave the house to her son Charlie for a total of $15.00. He moved into the house on North Gay Street. In 1962 he took a mortgage out on his house so that he could buy furniture for his house and would pay it off in 1963. He sadly would die on June 8th, 1963, in Tuskegee, Macon County at the age of 46.
Contributed by Kate and Jake from Auburn High School