George M. Gray

DR. GEORGE M. GRAY, one of the advisory editors of this work, was born at Waukegan, Illinois, March 4, 1856. His father, the late Rasselas M. Gray, mentioned elsewhere in this history, was a native of Rhode Island, and his mother, Susan (Doust) Gray, was born in Massachusetts. The family moved to Quindaro in the year 1858 and performed an important part in the development of the city and the state. Dr. Gray is the third of the four children born to them. His early education was in the public schools of Wyandotte county. At the age of nineteen he was a clerk in the drug store of T. J. Eaton in Kansas City, Missouri. While employed in this service he was filled with a desire to adopt the profession of medicine and surgery. He began studying under the preceptorship of Dr. E. W. Shauffler in Kansas City, Missouri, remaining there three years and taking a course in the Kansas City Medical College, then known as the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was graduated in 1879. In the fall of that year he went to New York city and entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College, from which he received a diploma in 1880. He at once returned to his home and from that year to the present time Dr. Gray has been a practicing physician and surgeon, advancing from a young beginner to one of the highest places in the profession in the United States. He not only has been connected with the staff of St. Margaret's Hospital from its beginning in 1887 but has rendered valuable service to the sick and injured in other institutions, besides having a large private practice. He has at all times exalted the healing art as the noblest of callings, and has been influential in the Kansas State Medical Society and in the schools of medicine and surgery. Especially has he been interested in the enactment of wholesome health laws in the state and he has labored unceasingly for the advancement and the upbuilding of a great medical school in connection with the University of Kansas. Dr. Gray is a Republican in politics. He has not been a seeker after office of any kind, although his pride of city and state have at times led him to accept official positions for the accomplishment of great things. This was illustrated by his acceptance in 1906, for an unfinished term of four months, of the office of mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, but on the completion of that brief service he declined to be a candidate for the office. As a citizen proud of his city Dr. Gray years ago formulated plans for a system of parks and boulevards. While president of the Mercantile Club in 1907-8 he saw his ideas incorporated in a state law and made a part of the charter of the city, and then by appointment to a membership of the Park Board he helped to put into operation the splendid system that is now developing.