Charles Hubbard
(October 31, 1910 - February 25, 2011)
Charles Hubbard was born on a sugar cane plantation in Donsonville, Louisiana., on October 31,1910. He passed on February 25, 2011 in College Park, Georgia after a short illness.
Charles Hubbard has been a laryngectomee since June 1980 and he spoke using esophageal speech. He had his surgery at New Jersey Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and was member of Garden State Nu-Voice Club. In 1987 he moved to Georgia and became a member of Greater Atlanta Voice Masters. For all these 23 years Charles was a very active in the Club activities. He visited hundreds of laryngectomees in Metro Atlanta hospitals and has also worked together with doctors and speech pathologists. He served on the Board of Directors of the Greater Atlanta Voice Masters and the International Association of Laryngectomees.
Last year we celebrated his 100th birthday. Our small group came together on November 11th 2010 to say thanks to the man who was one of the founders of the modern Greater Atlanta Voice Masters together with Clubs "mother" Jane DelVechio. On Sunday November 21st 2010 the Friendship Community Church in College Park celebrate Charles Hubbard's 100th birthday with a big, well attended birthday party. He drove himself from his College Park house to the Friendship Community Church, talked with everyone who attended celebration, took digital pictures and posted them on Facebook and Picasa webalbum.
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A birthday party for Charles Hubbard was also organized in Newark, New Jersey, where Charles lived and worked more than forty years.
Farm work dominated his youth, but he managed to graduate high school in 1928. He is a retired construction superintendent. He spent most of the 1930's crisscrossing the country doing seasonal labor from Maine to Florida, and from Virginia to California. Charles states, "When you come from the sugar cane farm, just about everything is fun".
During World War II he served as a Merchant Seaman. He acquired further education in Blueprint and Construction Engineering at Rutgers University and earned a certification in 1953.
He lived in New Jersey for more than Forty Years before moving to College Park, GA. He was married to his first wife Ernestine Kegler, who died in 1983. He married his second wife Consuella Smith Hubbard in 1987, He raised five children. He has sixteen grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Charles Hubbard has always been an active church member. He was a longtime member of Emmanuel Baptist Churchy in Trinton Falls, NJ and Friendship Community Chuch in College Park, GA.
Mr. Hubbard was a 33rd Degree Prince Hall Mason and a member of Celestial Lodge #36 in Red Bank, NJ and a past Exhalted Leader, Bates Lodge 220 IBPOE of W. Red Bank, NJ. He retired in 1975 from his positions as a construction superintendant and as a business manager for AFL-CIO Local 472. He was a lifelong, dedicated, union man.
He was a familiar face in almost every Metro-Atlanta hospital, where he spent time talking, listening, and counseling cancer patients including his fellow laryngectomees. Presently patients and families who are referred by their doctors come to his home and he talks with the patient and the family. He states, "I talk with the family because the whole family is involved in recovery".
Charles Hubbard has lived an extraordinary life. He was called to serve actively in his communities and lived an active life until a recent illness. His favorite pastimes included politics, reading, working in his yard, Texas Hold'em poker and surfing the internet. He kept in regular contact with friends and family via email, Facebook and his cellphone.
Just a few years ago he took a flight to New Jersey. While there he visited Dr. Shaw at Sloan Kettering. Dr. the Shaw spent the whole day taking him on rounds to visit patients and to talk to the interns. Charles was a wealth of knowledge, almost a mystical source of experience and for a cancer patients or anyone who was ill, his vitality was stirring.
In 1997, a policeman pulled Charles over for doing 80mph on I-75. The policeman looked at his license, shook his head, and said, "The only thing I can say pops, is God Bless You".
Charles was truly a remarkable person.