THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - DR. FRANKLIN GOWDY, US NAVY HOSPITAL, DUBLIN, GEORGIA

Franklin  Gowdy  played tackle for the University of Chicago Maroons in the early 1920s.  In 1924, he was elected captain of the football team.  Gowdy was generally regarded by national experts as one of the best tackles in the county and rated by his coach, the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg as “one of the best tackles ever developed at the University of Chicago.” Gowdy was chosen to the All Big Ten team and the All American team and led his team to a 3-0-3 record and its last Big Ten Championship.  He was honored by Coach Stagg in 1925, when he was asked to coach the Chicago line.  His younger brother Vic followed in his footsteps, first at Chicago and then as captain of the Oberlin College team.

Dr. Franklin Gowdy graduated from Rush Medical School in Chicago.   He began the  practice of  medicine in 1937 in Evanston, Illinois, where he met and married his wife, Dorothy Faye Brockway.  Dr. Gowdy enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve shortly after Pearl Harbor.  Gowdy, then nearly forty years of age, expected to serve in the Naval Reserve at the Great Lakes Naval Base.  He was transferred to the Marines and sent to Guadalcanal attached to First Division United States Marine Corps.  The First Marine Division participated in the invasion of the islands of New Britain and Pellilu. By the end of his tour in the South Pacific, Dr. Gowdy rose to the rank of Lt. Commander in the Navy.   His brother Howard served as an officer in the Army Air Corps.

In his last year in the service in the Navy, Dr. Gowdy was assigned to the United States Naval Hospital in Dublin, Georgia.  In January 1946, Dr. Gowdy resumed his practice of medicine in Winnetka, Illinois.  He and his family resided in nearby Glencoe.  Dr. Gowdy practiced medicine in the Chicago area and taught internal medicine at Northwestern University until his death on July 15, 1973.