Chandler, Greene Croft, (MD); Enterprise, MS;  now Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000




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 Chandler, Greene Croft, M. D., Shreveport's capable health officer and able
physician, was born at Enterprise, Miss., Dec. 30, 1865.  His father, Greene
C. Chandler, was a lawyer and judge of the circuit court in Mississippi and
also served as United States district attorney.  He was a Confederate soldier
and lived to the age of 73 years.  Dr. Chandler's mother bore the maiden name
of Martha Croft, and both she and Judge Chandler were natives of Mississippi,
in which state the doctor was reared at Enterprise, Bay St. Louis and Corinth. 
He was educated in private schools, the Agriculture and Mechanical college and
the University of Mississippi.  In 1888 he graduated in medicine from Tulane
university, and at once began the practice of medicine at Natchitoches, La.,
where he remained in active practice up to 1896, when he located in Shreveport
to specialize in diseases of the eye, car, nose and throat, in which he had
taken postgraduate work at New Orleans and elsewhere.  He is a member of the
Caddo Parish Medical society, of which he has served as president, and has
also served as first vice-president of the Louisiana State Medical society,
and is also a member of the Southern Medical society.  June 15, 1912, Dr.
Chandler became a member of the board of health for the city of Shreveport,
and as its president has made a record of which his many friends are proud. 
Upon assuming the duties of this office Dr. Chandler at once began with vigor
to improve sanitary conditions in the city of Shreveport.  A fight against the
mosquito and the fly was inaugurated and carried on vigorously; but not only
against the spreaders of disease did he labor with earnest and effectual
purpose.  The pure food and sanitary departments of the city affairs did much
to reduce the causes of disease, and from the beginning the death rate of the
city began to lower.  Shreveport is a city of rapid growth, but its board of
health has meet the emergency, and under Dr. Chandler's presidency health
conditions have greatly improved and the death rate in cases of preventable
diseases has decreased, while the population has increased.  Under the present
administration of the Shreveport board of health there has not been one white
resident death from typhoid fever and only 5 deaths from malaria in 23 months
ending June 30, 1914.  And this board inaugurated a movement for fair Federal
government mortality statistics, that is, rating the white and colored
separately, so as to show the real health conditions of both races in various
sections of the country.  Dr. Chandler has been twice married.  His first
wife, Annie Hyneman, died 2 years after marriage, leaving a daughter, 
Eugenia, now Mrs. Ragan Striplin, of Corinth, Miss.  In 1898 Dr. Chandler
married Miss Herries Gray, the daughter of Dr. R. A. Gray, of Shreveport. 
Three sons and a daughter have been born to them, namely:  Robert Gray, 
Greene Croft,  Walter Bernard and  Herries.

Source:  Louisiana:  Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events,
Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 95-96. 
Edited by Alcée Fortier, Lit.D.  Published in 1914, by Century Historical
Association.