Page 40 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2022 - Online Magazine

Dr. Frank Ryburn, Jr.
“ wanted to be a civil engineer,”
said 99-year-old Dr. Frank
I Ryburn, Jr. Fortunately for his
patients, his attention turned to
the medical field. He was born on
April 23,1923, in the small town
of Gasaway, WV to Frank and
Nancy Reed Ryburn. Frank, Sr.
had moved his family there from
a Washington County, VA farm
owned by the Ryburn family
since the property was deeded
to them by Revolutionary War
patriot Patrick Henry.
Frank, Jr. graduated from South
Charleston High School in 1941.
“I wasn’t involved in any sports.
I mowed lawns and saved up
money for college. I enrolled in
Hampden-Sydney College which
was established in 1775 and is the
oldest privately chartered college
in the southern U.S.
“When I was in the sixth grade,
I was really interested in Civil
Engineering, and I even tagged
along with a surveyor and
worked with him for a time. I
was also interested in medicine,
so I entered college as a pre-med
student. The War was going on,
so, after two years, I signed up
for the Army Reserves. I was
called up on April 23, 1943,
40 Lubbock Senior Link
Medicine, Mazie, and a
Lifetime of Memories
by Larry Williams
and sent to Camp Croft, South
Carolina, where I was put in the
4th Platoon, Company A, 35th
Infantry Training Battalion.”
“Initially, I was sent to the
University of West Virginia in
an Army Specialized Training
Program, where they squeezed
two years’ worth of college into
one. I was in uniform, and we did
drills just like the Army. After
that, I was sent to a hospital in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where
I was a ward boy—just marking
time until I could get into
medical school at the University
of Virginia. While at the
university, I lived in a rooming
house across from the campus.
Once, I heard a big boom. A
physics lab on campus was
working on the atomic bomb.”
Frank was discharged from active
duty on March 26, 1946 and
graduated from Medical School
in 1948.
Frank went on to intern at Baylor
University Hospital in Dallas.
He met a young nursing student,
Mazie Hall, whom he married
on September 19, 1949, but his
military
service was
not over.
“I had the
dubious
distinction
of being the
first doctor
in Texas to
be called up
(in February
1951) during
the Korean
War, along
with a
dentist and a veterinarian. I was
sent to Red River Arsenal near
Texarkana. It was a big Army
base that had all rolling stock,
anything with wheels, that had
been mothballed since World
War II. They were being re-
mobilized. I was assigned as the
Hospital Commander until I was
discharged at the rank of captain
in February 1953.”
“I went back to Baylor to finish
my training in internal medicine.
After I finished, we moved to
Lubbock in 1955, and I went to
work at Methodist Hospital.
Lubbock was pretty isolated from
the rest of the medical world at
that time. The one time I’ll never
forget was May 11, 1970. I was
in the hospital on one of the top
floors when a big storm started
up. There was lots of turbulence.
I went down to the emergency
room, and a nurse said, ‘Don’t
leave. We have a lot of patients
coming from downtown. I
worked all night. The tornado
did all sorts of damage—26
fatalities, around 1500 injured,
several hospitalized, and
$135 million in damages. The