Charles Clark Hubbard Sr.

Charles Clark Hubbard, Sr. passed into the Lord God’s greater presence on November 4, 2020. A lifetime Montgomery resident, he was the last of three children born to Dr. Thomas Brannon and Caroline Clark Hubbard on August 19, 1924. He attended Barnes School for Boys in Montgomery, Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, and Princeton University, briefly, before serving as a teenage rifleman, Pfc., in the 100th Infantry Division during World War II. Severely wounded in battle on the fields of southern France, having taken a mortar shrapnel just below the temple, he was awarded the Purple Heart and would later receive two Bronze Stars and other service medals. While in the U.S. Army, he spent a half year at The Citadel (Charleston, SC) learning basic engineering.

After World War II, he graduated from Washington and Lee University and soon thereafter married Henrietta Fontaine Hill, his beloved wife of 70 years. Charles is survived by his wife Henrietta, his two sons, Charles Clark Hubbard, Jr. (Emily) and Joseph Lister Hubbard, Sr. (Katie) as well as his grandchildren: Eleanor Montgomery (Tom), Joseph Hubbard (Ashley), Caroline Trinoskey (Gavin), Brannon Hubbard, Charlie Hubbard, Jean Catherine Hubbard, and Lucy Lyons Hubbard. Great grandchildren include: Ella, Francis, and Katie Grace Montgomery; and Hill, Hattie, and Hannah Hubbard.

After graduating from college, Charles worked at Tallassee Mills before making a career in investment banking, having co-founded the Montgomery office of Sterne, Agee, and Leach (now Stifel). Charles was a life-long member of the Kiwanis Club of Montgomery, having served as Club President and also as President of the Alabama State Fair (now Alabama National Fair), which he helped launch in 1954. Other civic involvement included the Montgomery Red Cross, the Inmate Employment Program under Chief Judge Joseph Phelps, and the Faith Rescue Mission. As a boy Charles attended St. John’s Episcopal Church and would later transfer his membership to the Church of the Ascension when he married Henrietta. He had a resonant voice, loved singing and was proud of joining the Billy Graham Crusade Choir during its 1967 crusade in his hometown.

Charles helped pioneer historic preservation in Alabama, supporting key legislation and guiding the nascent preservation of Montgomery landmarks, beginning with the Ordeman-Shaw Complex in the late 1960s. He was a founder and president of the Montgomery County Historical Society, about the time of the relocation of the historic Barnes School building to its current location to house the Society.

We would be remiss in not mentioning that Charles was a lover of British and American literature, from Kipling, Dickens and Carroll to Melville, Hawthorne and Hemingway, often quoting passages to his family. Though happily buried in the pages of history and literature, he relished the outdoors as a patient fisherman, bird hunter, daily walker and weekend yard worker. His dream of owning farmland in south Montgomery County was never realized. May he now walk the fields of heaven, basking in the light of his Creator.

Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. outdoors at the Church of the Ascension (pandemic protocol to be followed; masks and social distancing required), with private interment to follow at Greenwood Cemetery. Pallbearers include Eleanor Montgomery, Joseph Hubbard, Caroline Trinoskey, Brannon Hubbard, Charlie Hubbard, Jean Catherine Hubbard, and Thomas Ely. Honorary pallbearers are Charles’ remaining nephews and nieces, the offspring of his late brother Brannon and his late sister Ann.

Memorials may be made to the Church of the Ascension, the Kiwanis Club of Montgomery or the Montgomery County Historical Society. The family also gives thanks to Vernitta Jennings and her staff for their constant care and love for Charles in his last years.