Edward Ross Gandy, MD.  Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Frances Ball Turner

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History of Louisiana by Chambers.  Vol. II pg. 222
EDWARD ROSS GANDY, M.D., has been engaged in the practice of his profession
more than a quarter of a century, and while his success in general practice
was of unequivocal order, he has recognized the consistency and value of
concentration in professional service, with the result that  since 1912, in
the City of Alexandria, Rapides Parish, he has confined his practice
exclusively to the diagnosis and treatment of the diseases of the eye,
ear, nose and throat, in which department of professional activity he has
gained authoritative status and a large and representative practice.

Doctor Gandy was born at Many, judicial center of Sabine Parish,
Louisiana, October 27, 1867, and is  a son of Daniel Ross and Nancy Louisa
(Self) Gandy, both likewise native of Sabine Parish.  Daniel R. Gandy has
given his entire active career to farm industry, and now resides on the well
improved homestead farm that he has owned for more than half a century, the
same being in Vernon Parish.  He is venerable in years but still finds
satisfaction in giving a geneal supervision to his farm estate, while the
loved and devoted wife of his young manhood remained with him in gracious
companionship that continued until her death.  Of their four children
three are living, and of the number Dr. Edward R., of this review, is the
eldest; Mrs. L. M. Cole, the elder daughter, resides at Jennings, Jefferson
Davis Parish; and Mrs. E. J. Duggan is a resident of Marietta, Oklahoma.
After the death of his first wife Daniel R. Gandy wedded Louisa Stevens, and
of the thirteen children of this union ten are living.  Mr. Gandy has ever
been a stalwart democrat, and is a zealous member of the Baptist Church.
He served as a gallant soldier of the Confederacy during virtually the
entire period of the Civil war, and among the important engagements in
which he took part was the historic battle of Shiloh.  With his command
he surrendered, at Vicksburg, and in the later years he has shown his
abiding interest in his United Confederate Veterans.  His father, Daniel R.
Gandy, Sr., was one of the organizers of Sabine Parish and there continued to
reside until his death.  Elijah Self, maternal grandfather of Doctor Gandy,
likewise was numbered among the early settlers of Sabine Parish, he having
served on the bench of the Parish Court and both he and Daniel R. Gandy, Sr.,
having been members of the State Legislature at the same time, in 1852.

Doctor Gandy gained his early education in the schools of Vernon Parish, 
and thereafter attended the Blum Male and Female College at Burkeville,
Texas.  In preparation for his chosen profession he entered the Memphis
Hospital Medical College, Memphis, Tennessee, and in this excellent
institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1896  and with
the degree of Doctor of Medicine.  During the ensuing four years he was
engaged in practice at Many, Sabine Parish, and he then removed to Lake
Charles, Calcasieu Parish, in which city he built up a substantial general
practice. 
 There he remained ten years, and he then, in 1914, established his home
and professional headquarters at Alexandria, the intervening two years
having been marked by his service as an interne in the New Orleans Eye,
Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, where he has clinical and other
advantages that admirably fortified him for the special department of practice
to which he has since confined his attention -- treatment of the disease of
the eye, ear, nose and throat.  The Doctor is an active and valued member
of the Rapides Parish Medical Society, and he has membership also in the
Louisiana State Medical Society and American Medical Association,
besides having the distinction of being a Fellow of the American College of

Surgeons.  The Doctor has served as chief of the staff of the Baptist
Hospital at Alexandria and is on  the staff as eye, ear, nose and throat
consultant of the Louisiana Hospital for the Insane.  He lectures in the
local school for trained nurses on diseases of the eye, ear, nose and
throat, and is local oculist and aurist for the Rock Island Railroad and
Missouri Pacific Railroad companies.

Doctor Gandy is a stalwart in the ranks of the democratic party, but has
had no desire for political preferment.  He has been for fifteen years a
deacon in the Baptist Church, and is affiliated with the Masonic
Fraternity, the Knights of Pythias, and the Woodmen of the World.

The year 1899 recorded the marriage of Doctor Gandy to Miss Carrie
Bush, who was born in Mississippi, and whose educational advantages included
those of Keatchie College, Louisiana.  Doctor and Mrs. Gandy have four
children:  Truett is, in 1924, a student in the medical department of Baylor
University, Dallas, Texas, he having been graduated in Baylor Univerity, Waco,
Texas, in 1921, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and the degree of Master
of Arts having been conferred upon him by that institution in the following
year;  Mildred has attended Montezuma College, New Mexico, and is now a member
of the class of 1927 in Baylor College for Girls, Belton, Texas;  Eloise is a
member of the class of 1925 in the Alexandria High School and is specializing
in music; and Billy, a lad of eleven years , is in, the grammar department or
grade of the Alexandria public schools.