Charles Stephen Bolster
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogast
Charles Stephen Bolster was born in Dorchester on December 20, 1894, the only child of Edith Rebecca (Lynch) and Percy Gardner Bolster. Percy was born in Roxbury; Edith in Boston. They were married in Dorchester on January 1, 1894. Charles was born at their home, at 217 Norfolk Street.
Percy was a lawyer, the family profession. His father, Solomon Alonzo Bolster, was a judge of the Roxbury District Court. His brother, Wilfred Bolster, served as chief justice of the Boston Municipal Court. Percy was also an entomologist, particularly interested in beetles; when he died, Charles donated his father’s collection to the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Edith’s mother, Lavinia, and her sister, Caroline, lived with the family at 217 Norfolk Street. Caroline was a Smith College graduate who tutored in Dorchester, and was later a reader in Archaeology at Bryn Mawr. In 1900, the census recorded that the family employed a live-in servant, Ellen Sayers, a 21-year-old Irish immigrant. In 1910, the household included a boarder, Kate Harding; the census did not record any domestic help in the household at that time.
Charles was a student at the Roxbury Latin School, graduating in 1911. He then attended Harvard, graduating in the class of 1915. A member of the Harvard Pierian Sodality, one of the oldest musical organizations in the country, he served as conductor of the Pierian Orchestra. In 1915, he attended Harvard Law School, as had his father and grandfather. While at Harvard Law School, in 1916, he served in the Harvard Regiment (later called the Harvard Battalion) for a year: in the spring semester in Company G and in the fall semester in Company C.
Charles enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve Forces and was provisionally appointed an Ensign on April 6,
1917. Just as Charles was not the first lawyer in his family, nor the first Harvard graduate, he was also not the first to serve in the United States military. His grandfather had enlisted in the Army in 1862, serving as a Second Lieutenant in the 23rd Regiment, Maine Volunteers, during the Civil War. An earlier ancestor, Isaac Bolster II, was a Captain in the Revolutionary Army.
On June 12, 1917, Charles was called to active duty. He was given command of the Patrol Boat USS Skink, a motorboat on patrol in the Boston area. On August 28, 1917, he was transferred to the Patrol Boat USS Malay, a steam yacht patrolling the east coast, on which he served first as Executive Officer, and then as Commanding Officer. He was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade) on November 20, 1918. He served as Navigating Officer on the icebreaker USS Rogday beginning on December 27. For much of the time he was assigned to the USS Rogday it was inactive in Boston. In early June 1919, the ship traveled to Bermuda to aid a damaged cargo ship. The Rogday was decommissioned on June 18. On the 25, Charles was placed on inactive duty. He was honorably discharged on April 5, 1921, when his enrollment expired.
Charles graduated from Harvard Law School in 1920 and was admitted to the bar, joining the law firm Burnham, Bingham, Gould and Murphy (later Bingham, Dana, and Gould), specializing in admiralty law. He practiced before the United States Supreme Court at least twice: in 1944 and 1955. He was also very active with Unitarian organizations, most notably serving as the president of the Young People’s Religious Union.
In early October 1930, Charles married Elizabeth Winthrop Monroe at the First Church, Boston, on Marlborough Street. Originally from Lexington, Elizabeth was a graduate of Radcliffe College, class of 1920. They honeymooned in Canada and Newfoundland, then made their home at 57 Grozier Road in Cambridge. Five years later in his Harvard class report, Charles updated his classmates, “Since the 15th Reunion I have acquired a wife, a daughter, and a son in the order named. Not bad for an old man!” Charles and Elizabeth had three children: Sarah, Stephen, and Katherine.
In 1935, Charles purchased the home of the late dermatologist Dr. Townsend W. Thorndike, an 11-room house with a two-car garage at 75 Fresh Pond Parkway in Cambridge. The Bolsters also had a 15-acre summer property in Newagen, Maine, near Boothbay Harbor. “Give me an axe and a saw and old clothes and my woods up at Newagen and you have a happy man,” Charles was quoted in The Boston Globe.
In Cambridge, Charles was active in the Republican party, serving as the chairman of the Cambridge Republican City Committee. On a state level, he chaired the Resolutions Committee at the Massachusetts Republican Convention in 1950. He was a delegate to the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago, which nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1954, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress.
Governor Christian Herter appointed Charles to the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1956. For ten years he sat as a trial judge, hearing civil actions, labor disputes, murder and criminal cases. In 1966 he retired, as required by Massachusetts statute.
Charles and Elizabeth were involved with a number of charities; Charles served in official capacities for organizations including the New England Grenfell Association, the Boston Young Men’s Christian Union, and the Boston Port Seaman’s Aid Society. In Maine, he was a member of the Star Island Corporation. The Bolsters belonged to the Cambridge Historical Society and, in April 1962, Charles delivered a paper before the membership on the history of Cambridge court houses.
Elizabeth died on July 8, 1980, while they were in Newagen. At the end of his life, Charles lived in a retirement community in Lexington. He died there on June 17, 1993, at age 98. He was buried in Mount Auburn cemetery on Narcissus Path, beside his wife and alongside his parents.
Sources
Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com
1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 United States Census; Ancestry.com
Harvard College Class of 1915, Second Report, Cambridge, MA: Printed for the Class, Crimson Printing Co, 1919: 20; Archive.org
“Has 108th Anniversary,” Boston Globe, 7 March 1916: 7; Newspapers.com
“Regimental Announcements,” Harvard Crimson, 19 January 1916; TheCrimson.com
“Battalion Orders,” Harvard Crimson, 16 October 1916; TheCrimson.com
World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.
Mead, Frederick S., ed. Harvard’s Military Record in the World War. Boston: Harvard Alumni Association, 1921: 100; Ancestry.com
“USS Skink (SP-605),” Wikipedia. 24 February 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Skink_(SP-605)>
“USS Malay (SP-735),” Wikipedia. 24 February 2018.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Malay_(SP-735)>
“USS Rogday (ID-3583),” Wikipedia. 25 February 2018
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Rogday_(ID-3583)>
“Bolster Heads Religious Union,” Boston Globe, 29 May 1926: 20; Newspapers.com
“Mr. & Mrs. C.S. Bolster to Live in Cambridge,” Cambridge Tribune (Cambridge MA), 11 October 1930: 1; Cambridge Public Library
Harvard Class of 1915. Cambridge: Printed for the Vicennial, 1935; HathiTrust.org
“Real Estate and Building News,” Cambridge Tribune, 19 July 1935: 7; Cambridge Public Library
Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
Republican National Committee. Permanent Roll of Delegates and Alternate Delegates to Republican National Convention. Chicago, IL: July 7, 1952; 15; HathiTrust.org
“Judge Beaudreau Resigns, Herter Names Atty. Bolster,” Boston Globe, 1 December 1956: 1, 11; Newpspapers.com
Godsoe, William D. “Title ‘Judge’ Not New for Atty. Bolster,” Boston Globe, 2 December 1956: 30; Newspapers.com
Bolster, Charles S. “Cambridge Court Houses,” Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings for the years 1961-1963, Vol 39, Cambridge, MA, 1964: 55; Cambridge Historical Society
“Deaths,” Boston Globe, 1 October 1980: 24; Newspapers.com
Connolly, Richard. “Is State Law A Bar To Better Court Practice?” Boston Globe, 18 Feb 1970: 2; Newspapers.com
Deaths, Boston Globe, 19 June 1993: 22; Newspapers.com
Witherell, Warren F. “Charles S. Bolster 1894-1993,” Star Island Newsletter, Fall 1993, Vol XIX #1: 2; StarIsland.org
Charles S. Bolster, FindAGrave.com