Youngest child of Solomon Block with photo!

Charles Block 1921 passport photo

Charles Block was  four years old when he first appeared on a census roll and in 1880, the Solomon & Mary Block family were living in New Orleans, Louisiana. I found his full name was Charles Henry Block and he was born 19 Dec 1875 in Camden, Arkansas. He married Stella Inez Cox who was born in Brown County, Illinois in 1877 to Rhodes H. Cox (1858-1935) and Mary A. Rockwood (1857-1925). Charles and Stella were married by 1900 because they appeared on the 1900US Census  as a family living in St Louis, Missouri. May Rockwood (the maiden name of Stella’s mother) Block was born 24 Feb 1901 and Elinor Block was born in 1913. The family applied for passports in 1921 for travel to “British Isles, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy’ (here is the application for Charles H. Block).

Charles worked for the Delmar Manufacturing Company which had a motto “Our trade will last as long as babies are born without caps” (see recomendation for Charles on Delmar letterhead) but that slogan was not prophetic. Delmar made the following (in the 1821 recommendation letter for Block, Delmar representative Thomas A Dugan stated he’d known Charles over twenty five years) :

• Infant and Children’s Caps
• Bonnets & Misses Millenry
• Ladies Boudoir Caps
• “May Rockwood” (Perhaps the ‘May Rockwood” hat was named for May Rockwood Block)
•  D.M.C. Automobile Hats
• Sport Hats, Patented
• “Non-Skid” Hats, Etc.

In 1822 May Rockwood Block married Ralph Benedict Beach in Media, Pennsylvania, Beach having just earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics in 1921 from the University of Pennsylvania.

George Derry Beach

The year 1930 saw them living in Atlanta, Georgia. May and Ralph had a daughter and two sons, one of whom, George Beach passed away in 2011.

Stella Inez and Elinor Block, Mae Rockwood (Block) Beach