GRAY, REUBEN FLANAGAN, M.D.
                        Lake Charles, LA


**
**********************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************
 

Source: Southwest Louisiana Historical and Biographical by William Henry Perrin
published in 1891; page 151.
Typed by Margaret Rentrop Moore

Reuben Flanagan Gray, M.D., Lake Charles. - Dr. Reuben F. Gray was born in
Abbeville district, South Carolina, August 12, 1811.  He received the benefit of
a thorough collegiate education, and was a graduate of the University of
Maryland, Baltimore.  After completing his literary education
he studied medicine under Dr. Geddings.  Later he pursued a course in medicine
at the medical college in Philadelphia, where he received his degree.  He was
married in South Carolina, in 1839, to Miss F. C. Chiles, a native of that
State.  In 1857 he removed to Bienville parish, Louisiana, and there remained
until 1867, at which time he removed to St. Landry parish, and two years later
to Lake Charles, where he was at the time of his death.  In 1867 Dr. Gray made a
visit to British and Spanish Honduras, where he remained several months during
the cholera scourge of  67, administering to those who needed his services.  He
had three sons in the Confederate service. 
While in South Carolina Dr. Gray acquired a brilliant reputation as a physician
and surgeon.  After locating in Lake Charles he practised his profession here
until within a few months of his death, when age and failing health compelled
him to suspend the active labors of his long and useful life. 
Few names in Louisiana are more widely known or will be more gratefully
remembered that Dr. Gray's.  With a mind vigorous and highly cultivated, he
joined superiot skill and great experience in the medical profession, and to
these he added a most kindly and generous disposition, and a
heart throbbing with benevolent and charitable impulses.  When suffering
humanity came his way he never passed by on the other side; and the fact that a
sufferer was poor and friendless was a guarantee that he might rely on Dr. Gray
for his sympathy and relief.  He has been known, in Lake
Charles, to take a sick railroad laborer from the roadside to his own house and
give him a room, to the serious inconvenience of his own family, and to minister
to his wants for weeks until health was fully restored, of course without a hope
of other compensation than the gratitude of the sufferer.  Before the war his
eminent skill and reputation in his profession gave him a practice so
highly lucrative that, notwithstanding his large charity practice and his
indisposition to ask any one for payment of his services, he was enabled to
surround himself and his large family with the appliances of ease and comfort. 
Like thousands of others he lost all his means by the was, and the
exhausting labors of many years left him ill prepared to renew life's battles. 
His kindly disposition was not, however, soured by his reverses, and he quietly
took up and bravely carried the heavy burdens of an active physician's life
until exhausted nature could carry them no further.