EXCERPT: On August 10, 1913, Charles O’Shea was born to an Irish couple in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Within a few years, the boy’s father died in his sleep and his mother succumbed to the influenza epidemic of 1918. The deadliest in history, the pandemic killed up to 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 Americans. Orphaned at age five, Charles was adopted by his aunt, Esther St. George. When she married a man whose surname was Parcells, her nephew also took the last name. After purchasing two rooming houses in a downtown block, the family moved to Hackensack, New Jersey. Lucinda Whiting, a black cook and maid at the establishment, helped raise Esther’s quiet nephew, doting on him so much that he came to view her as a mother.

SOURCE: Page 1 of “Parcells: A Football Life

AUTHOR: Nunyo Demasio

TAKEAWAY: Charles Parcells was Bill Parcells’s father. Without the Spanish Flu — the pandemic’s moniker — one of the most famous last names in NFL history would be “O’Shea.” Thus, in an alternate universe, the 560-page biography is titled “O’Shea: A Football Life.” #book #football #history #pandemic #life #storytelling