Former Editor of Houston Chronicle Succumbs Thursday
Corsicana Semi-Weekly Light
Friday, 8 February 1929, Page 1
DALLAS, Feb. 7 – Charles Bowen Gillespie, editor of the Houston Chronicle, died in a sanitarium here at 2 a.m. today of pneumonia. Mr. Gillespie, who was 56 years old, had been in bad health for more than a year and a half.
He had been connected with the Chronicle since its first issue, on October 14, 1901. At that time he was city editor. He served in that capacity until 1904 when he became managing editor. This office he held until 1920, when he left the paper to become associated with Col. W.T. Eldridge at Sugarland. Three years later, he returned as vice-president and managing editor, and in 1926 he was made editor.
In addition to his newspaper connections, Mr. Gillespie was vice-president of the Sugarland railroad; a director of the Gulf Coast Lines; a United States government dollar a year man during the World War; first lieutenant, United States naval reserve, and Texas commissioner to the Rio De Janeiro world’s fair.
Surviving are his widow and children, Miss Ina Gillespie and Charles Love Gillespie; two brothers, R.S. and J.W. Gillespie, all of Houston, and two sisters, Mrs. Albert H. Carter, St. Louis, Mo., and Miss Minnie Gillespie, Houston.
Funeral services for Mr. Gillespie will be held at 1:30 p.m., Friday at Brenham. Rev. J.B. Cranfill of Dallas, will preach the sermon. Burial will be at Brenham.
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C.B. Gillespie of Houston Dies
Denton-Record Chronicle
7 February 1929
Houston, Feb. 7 – Charles Brown Gillespie, 57, vice president and editor of the Houston Chronicle, who died in a Dallas hospital early today, was born at Forney, on Dec. 17, 1872.
He entered the newspaper game when he was 20 years old, buying the weekly Forney Messenger. In 1895 he became city editor of the Brenham Banner, a daily, and later transferred to the competing Brenham Press. In 1901 he moved to Houston and became a reporter on the old Post. He remained there for only a few months, going to the Chronicle on Oct. 14, 1901, the date of its first issue, as city editor. Three years later he became managing editor and held that position until 1920 when he resigned to become associated with W.T. Eldridge at Sugarland. But the smell of the printer’s ink was too strong to be forgotten and he returned to the paper for whose first issue he had prepared copy. In 1923 he became vice president and managing editor and in 1926 was made editor.
Tentative funeral arrangements call for burial at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Brenham.
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An Editor, From the Country to the City
Waxahachie Daily Light
Tuesday, 12 February 1929, Page 4
THIS was Charles B. Gillespie, editor of the Houston Chronicle, whom death lately called beyond the Great Divide:
“In a way, he never departed from old ideas of the country newspaper – friendliness, kindly service to all, promotion of community unity and good will, discouragement of strife.”
One of his intimate acquaintances, a writer on the Chronicle, paid the above tribute to Charles Gillespie. And he said further:
“If all those to whom he had done a kindness should come and cast a blossom on the grave, he would sleep tonight under a wilderness of flowers.”
This man was not afraid to speak his thoughts. He would not condone wrong-doing. He was ready at any time to scathingly condemn graft and chicanery – evil of any sort.
But he came from “Main Street,” so to speak. He was born over in Kaufman county, and was operating the Forney Messenger before he had attained his 21st birthday. He liked to have pals he called by their first names; to feel the joys and sorrows of his community.
Charles Gillespie never let the city cast a wall of indifference about him. He remained, in heart, a country boy – a friend to all who needed friends; he kept alive in his soul the personal spark.
The world is a better place in which to live because of such men.
