Eric John Brock

Eric John Brock
Born	(1966-09-24)September 24, 1966 Berkeley, California, USA
Died	November 30, 2011(2011-11-30) (aged 45) Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Resting place	Oakland Cemetery in Shreveport, Louisiana
Alma mater	Centenary College of Louisiana
Occupation	Historian, author
Spouse(s)	Shannon Glasheen Brock
Children	No children
Parent(s)	Robert Donald Brock Victoria Berg Brock

Eric John Brock (September 24, 1966 – November 30, 2011) was an author, historian, and historic preservationist who researched and wrote extensively about his adopted city of Shreveport and the regional area of northwestern Louisiana.

Biography

Born in Berkeley, California, Brock moved with his parents at an early age to Shreveport. In 1988, he graduated from Methodist-affiliated Centenary College. He wrote sixteen books and more than five hundred articles on regional and city history. His columns entitled "The Presence of the Past" were published in the Shreveport Journal, a daily newspaper, which ceased regular publication in 1991. Brock also wrote the column "A Look Back" for the magazine The Forum Newsweekly in Shreveport. Toward the end of his career, Brock shifted his focus to the history of Ancient Rome. To make his work available to the public in perpetuity, Brock donated his extensive collection of Shreveport images and memorabilia to the archives at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.^[1]

He died at the age of forty-five in Shreveport of a stroke and a heart attack. He was survived by his wife of six years, the former Shannon Glasheen, and his mother, Victoria Berg Brock, both of Shreveport; his father, Robert Donald Brock of El Cajon, California, and his paternal grandmother, Frances Smith Brock of Poway, California.^[1]

Brock is interred at Oakland Cemetery in Shreveport, where he had conducted much historical research over the years. Gary Dillard Joiner of the LSU-Shreveport faculty, offered this tribute to Brock:

The passing of Eric Brock represents a loss not just to his family and to the community but to the larger world and the body of knowledge of Louisiana history. Many academic scholars cannot match the volume of work and information that Eric was able to produce, relating information about the people, places and things that define who we are and where we have been. He was wise beyond his years. He had the innate capacity to link things and people and places that most of us might overlook. He was a superb researcher, an excellent writer, and a wonderful chronicler.^[2]

John Andrew Prime of the Shreveport Times described Brock, accordingly, "witty and urbane, a meticulous researcher and a bon vivant, he was a frequent contributor to area newspapers and magazines and also collected a vast amount of material, much of it primary, on Shreveport, Caddo Parish, and the surrounding area, particularly the period from the Civil War to around World War I."^[2]

Selected works

• Shreveport, LA, 1998^[3]
• Red River Steamboats, with Gary Joiner, 1999^[4]
• New Orleans, 1999^[5]
• New Orleans Cemeteries, 1999^[6]
• Centenary College of Louisiana, 2000^[7]
• Eric Brock's Shreveport, 2001^[8]
• Jewish Community of Shreveport, 2003^[9]
• Shreveport in Vintage Postcards, 2005^[10]
• Natchitoches Parish, 2007^[11]
• Shreveport Chronicles: Profiles of Louisiana's Port City, 2009^[12]

References