Dr. Franklin Monroe Gilbert

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some men live a life. Franklin Monroe Gilbert lived about three lives rolled into one, and somehow still found time to be mayor.

Born in 1887, he started out the way a lot of sharp young Texas men did: in the classroom, teaching, then moving into principal's work. But somewhere along the way, Franklin Gilbert looked at what he was doin' and figured he wasn't finished yet. So off he went to the University of Texas in Galveston, to medical school.

That takes something. That takes a particular kind of restless ambition that doesn't sit still for long. He headed to New York to intern, and here's where the story picks up a little warmth; because it was in New York that he met a nurse by the name of Dorothy Bald Brandon.

Born in 1901, she clearly had her own sense of purpose. The two of them found each other in that big city and eventually made their way back to Irving, Texas, where Franklin joined his father in the practice of medicine. His father, Daniel Webster Gilbert, was no small figure himself; the marker calls him a prominent physician, and you don't just get that word handed to you.

So here's Franklin, practicing medicine alongside a prominent father, and you might think that's plenty for one man's story. But Franklin Monroe Gilbert was not what you'd call a man who peaked early. Over a distinguished career that stretched (and hold on now) fifty-nine years, he also found time to serve on the school board, to serve as mayor of Irving, and to serve as president of Irving State Bank.

Fifty-nine years of medicine. Mayor. Bank president.

School board. Dorothy, who lived all the way to 1990, had married a man who apparently did not believe in an idle Tuesday. And when it was all said and done, the family didn't let it rest there.

His two sons both became physicians. The medical legacy just kept right on going. Franklin Monroe Gilbert passed in 1982, at the age of ninety-four.

Some roots, once planted, just run deep.

What the marker says

(1887-1982) Franklin M. Gilbert was a teacher and principal before attending medical school at the University of Texas in Galveston. He interned in New York, where he met nurse Dorothy Bald Brandon (1901-1990), who became his wife. The couple returned to Irving, and he practiced medicine with his father, prominent physician Daniel Webster Gilbert. During Dr. Franklin Gilbert's distinguished 59-year career, he also served on the school board, as mayor and as president of Irving State Bank. The family's medical legacy continued with his two physician sons. Recorded - 2005