Contra Costa County
Biographies
CHARLES R. BLAKE, M.D.
Charles R. Blake, M.D., is the owner and proprietor of the Atchison Pharmacy on Ohio street in the Atchison district, and president and chief promoter of the Richmond Improvement Club. He has been a medical practitioner of Point Richmond since the winter of 1902. Dr. Blake was born in Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., September 9, 1868, and comes of stanch English ancestry, the inheriting of many of whose national traits is partially accountable for his success. His leaning toward medical science comes from his father, Dr. James W. Blake, who was born in London, England, and who acquired his preliminary professional training in Guy's Hospital, London, graduating therefrom in 1864. He came to America in 1865, settling in Visalia, where he practiced medicine and surgery, in 1872 going to San Francisco, where he took a course at the University of California, from which he graduated in 1874. Afterward he continued to reside in the northern city, and there his death occurred in 1899, at the age of fifty-four years. He made a specialty of the diseases of women and children, and was a prominent member of the county and state medical societies. For years he was active in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Masons, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Of the six children born of his union with Jane Simmonds, a native of Calcutta, India, three sons are deceased, leaving two sons and a daughter. Mrs. Blake still lives in San Francisco.
The eldest in his father's family, Charles R. was educated in the public schools of San Francisco, and in 1891 graduated from the medical department of the University of California. During 1892 he was resident surgeon in the City and County Hospital of San Francisco, afterward practicing in the same town until sailing for Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands in 1896, as government physician. He was in the islands two years before their annexation to the United States took place, and was in time to study the plague which devastated the islands in 1898, and in the suppression of which he took an active part. The experience was not altogether of a most pleasant nature, even from the standpoint of benefiting humanity by the knowledge acquired, for he was quarantined five months, and during that time had few of the privileges supposed to be enjoyed by a civilized man. September, 1902, found him again on the United States soil, and in the winter of 1902 he came to Richmond and opened a drug store preparatory to embarking on a general practice of medicine. He brought his newly wedded wife with him from the islands. She was formerly Lillian McKibbon, native of California, and is now the postmistress of the Atchison district at Richmond. A son, Herbert Edward, is the only child of Dr. and Mrs. Blake. Dr. Blake is a member of the state and county medical societies and is also identified with McKinley Lodge No. 347, F.& A.M., of Richmond; Honolulu Chapter No. 1, R.A.M. of Honolulu; Order of the Eastern Star; the Modern Woodmen of America; and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, of which he is presiding officer. He is also medical examiner for the New York Life, the Mutual Life of New York and the Pacific Mutual insurance companies. With his wife he is a member of the Episcopal Church. Dr. Blake's professional ideals are a credit to himself and to the community which he adorns with his skill, his humanitarianism, and his zeal. He has a delightful and invigorating personality, a keen sense of humor, and an appreciation of the value of cheerfulness and mental effort in the smoothing of life's physical woes.
Transcribed
10-13-16 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California
by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 1357. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago,
1904.
ฉ 2016 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Contra Costa County Biographies