Charles Alden Black, born in Oakland on March 6, 1919, was a prominent businessman and maritime expert, as well as the husband of former child star Shirley Temple Black.

Charles Black was the son of James Byers Black (1890-1965) and Katherine McElrath (1899-1984) of San Francisco, CA; grandson of John Edgar McElrath (1844-1907) and Elsie Ann Alden (1845-1936) of Oakland, and great-grandson of Solomon E. Alden.

Black attended Stanford University, where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Business.  During World Ward II, he served as a naval intelligence officer in the Pacific theater, earning a Silver Star and other honors.  Black also served as a regent for Santa Clara University and helped established a youth charity.

Shirley Temple and Charles Black met in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1950, where Black had been working for a shipping company and were married on December 16, 1950.  Together they had two children: a son, Charles Jr.; a daughter, Lori, as well as raising Shirley Temple's daughter Susan, from her first marriage to John Agar.

The couple moved from Hawaii back to California, where Black started a fishing and hatchery company and worked as a consultant on maritime issues. He also served on a Commerce Department advisory committee as well as various national Research Council panels.

Black co-founded a Massachusetts-based company that developed unmanned deep-ocean search and survey imagining systems.

Charles Black died in 2005 at the age of 86 from complications of bone marrow cancer at his home in Woodside, a suburb of San Francisco, California, at the age of 86, with his wife and other family members at his side.

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