Submitted by Caitlin Gould

My Uncle Charlie, Charles E. Gould, Esq. was born on Aug. 8, 1932 to John F. Gould and Anne V. (McGinn) Gould. Recently he shared some of his many accomplishments that he achieved in his 90 years – yes, 90!

I’ll begin with the date of Dec. 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor. My Uncle Charlie was with his Dad, my grandfather, who was a permanent Hull Firefighter at the Hull Village Fire Station and would end up providing coverage to Fort Revere during this time of war. From Feb. 9, 1951 to Feb. 8, 1954, he served two combat tours in Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division and the 1st Calvary Division. When he returned to the States, he was assigned as an instructor to the first-year cadets at West Point.

Back in Hull, he was active in local politics. During the 1956 Democratic campaign for state Representative, he shared the speaker’s platform with former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley at a large public gathering at Hingham High School. In 1958, he introduced Massachusetts Senator and future President John F. Kennedy to the people of Hull in the parking lot of what was Tedeschi’s and the Surf Ballroom.

In 1965, he became chairman of the Hull Redevelopment Authority, which at that time hadn’t had a meeting in five months, helping to take the authority through the important steps of planning and staffing, where only Hull residents were put in positions. During the largest town meeting in Hull’s history the urban renewal program was approved with 1,645 votes, a 90% approval rating. To fund this program, he was able to acquire millions from the federal and state governments.

In 1971, the process began to acquire 76 buildings that had been ruled substandard, the relocation of 125 people and numerous businesses, and the demolition of 75 buildings. One building was rehabilitated to become the Hull Medical Center, the state built the TOPICS Road, and community development was made available for the whole town by the federal government.

As part of the program, the chairman of the HRA requested that the town make the building department a full-time position. Separately, he recalled a proposal at a town meeting to make the office of town clerk an appointed one rather than an elective one. This office is responsible for the supervision of elections and the official in charge of records of births, marriages, deaths, etc., and Charles fought this proposal on the town meeting floor and was successful in defeating it.

After the Blizzard of 1978, he was the government official that was in charge of the insurance team that helped almost 1,000 families in Hull with their insurance claims. As a state examiner with the Massachusetts Division of Insurance, he represented that organization at a U.S. Senate hearing led by Senator Nunn of Georgia and Senator Percy of Illinois, where he wrote a report on those proceedings.

Recently, my cousin Nicholas Torre (my uncle’s look-alike), the U.S. Army historian, came up from the Pentagon to interview his granduncle about his military service to be sure it is preserved. He also interviewed my Mom, Marilyn Gould, the widow of Thomas G. Gould about his military record. My Dad, Charlie’s youngest brother, was a 100% disabled veteran of the Vietnam War.

Please join our family in wishing Charlie Gould a Happy 90th Birthday!