Queer Places:
Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 6, 50123 Firenze FI
Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori
Florence, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Toscana, Italy
Charles Riggs Parke (March 24, 1863 - October 12, 1929)
was a Brigade Surgeon with the rank of Major throughout the Spanish-American
War; he was a physician in Florence from 1900 to 1929, and attaché to the
Italian Government with rank of US Army Major, and in charge of all Italian
military hospitals, many of which he built, during World War I.
Charles Riggs Parke was born in Pittston, the youngest son of Rev. Nathan Grier Parke (1820–1903) and Anna Elizabeth Gildersleeve (1822–1900). On October 25, 1888, he married Alice Coutts Scammon (died 1921) and in January 1923, he married Caroline Edith Prout (born 1877), daughter of Joseph Prout and Elizabeth Lemoef Chegwin. He died in Florence, without issue.
Howard Pyle died in Florence, at 6 Via Garibaldi, at 4.30 a.m. on November 9, 1911, on the top floor. The house is one that was occupied by Lord Byron when he was in Florence. The two lower floors of the place were occupied for some years by Dr. Charles Riggs Parke, who became, wrote Pyle, “one of the closest of my friends” and “my regular physician here in Florence.” But in a world without antibiotics, the doctor was no match for the Bright’s Disease (or uric acid poisoning?) which doomed his upstairs neighbor.
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