Eva Mae Anderson Bock
The Steady Heart of the Bock Family
Eva Mae Anderson Bock (1891 – 1961)
Eva Mae Anderson was born in July 1891 in New Jersey to Phoebe E. Anderson, age 26, and David M. Anderson, age 43. She grew up as New Jersey shifted from farmland to industry, with places like Springfield in Union County still marked by open meadows, dairy farms, and the sounds of nearby mills.
By 1900, nine-year-old Eva was living in Springfield with her parents and siblings, attending the local schoolhouse and helping at home. The 1905 state census lists her as a student, reflecting the growing expectation that girls would continue their education beyond the primary grades.
In her later teens, Eva found work close to home as an edger in a butter plant, one of the small creameries that dotted Union County in the early 1900s. These plants churned and packaged butter for the growing markets in Newark and New York, and young women like Eva often handled the cutting, smoothing, and wrapping of finished blocks. It was steady, practical work that contributed to the household income while keeping her near family.
On October 19, 1910, at the age of nineteen, Eva married Charles Frederick Bock in Bridgewater, New Jersey. They settled in Springfield, where they would raise a large family and spend the rest of their lives together. Their first child, Charles Frederick Bock Jr., was born in 1911, followed by Edward (1913), Marian (1918), Robert (1922), Lillian (1925), Franklin (1927), and Richard (1930).
Through the 1920s and 1930s the Bocks’ home remained in Springfield. Charles worked in skilled trades connected to the region’s factories and lumber yards, while Eva ran the busy household, tending to seven children during the lean years of the Depression. Her life was marked by steady perseverance and devotion to family — qualities that sustained so many working-class New Jersey women of her generation.
Eva Mae Anderson Bock passed away in August 1961 at the age of seventy. She was laid to rest in Springfield, Union County, the town that had shaped nearly every chapter of her life. Her story endures as a portrait of quiet industry and maternal strength in a changing America.