Wilbur Clarence Gordon
Submitted by Robert
Kingrey
Source: The Negro Trail Blazers by Delilah L. Beasley
Dr. Wilbur Clarence Gordon, the subject of this sketch, was
born in Ironton, Ohio, May 9, 1880; graduated from the Medical
Department of Howard University, Washington, D.C., May 1904;
admitted to practice medicine after an examination in Ohio,
July 1904. He located at Springfield, Ohio, where he
successfully practiced from November 1904, until July 1912, at
which time he moved to California. After passing the state
medical examination held in San Francisco, August 1912, he was
admitted to practice in September of the same year. He then
located in Los Angeles, California.
Dr. Wilbur Clarence Gordon immediately identified himself
with the activities of the race in the City of the Angeles. He
was instrumental in organizing the Ohio State Society and the
Doctor's, Dentists and Pharmacists Association for Southern
California. He was elected as special delegate to attend the
National Doctors, Dentists and Pharmacists Association in
their National Convention, which was held at Raleigh, North
Carolina in 1914. He was instructed on behalf of the Mayor of
Los Angeles and the Doctors, Dentists and Pharmacists
Association of Los Angeles and Southern California, to extend
to that body an invitation to hold their next annual meeting
in Los Angeles, California. He was unsuccessful in securing
the convention, as Chicago was selected.
Dr. Gordon is a distinguished member of the National
Doctors, Dentists and Pharmacists Association, having
frequently appeared on their programs. He was elected a member
of the executive board at the 1916 meeting, which was held in
Kansas City, Mo. Since locating in Los Angeles he has
purchased a centrally located double - corner lot, upon which
he has erected a handsome residence and suite of modern
offices. During the past year he has added three more rooms
for electrical treatments.
Dr. Wilbur Clarence Gordon is quite musical and for a long
time was the chorister of the Second Baptist Church of Los
Angeles. He readily entered the musical activities of the
community. He has trained several large choruses, the most
notable of which was the one consisting of one hundred voices,
which rendered "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast," a musical event of
1916, which was rendered in the Trinity Auditorium. This is
considered one of the most beautiful auditoriums in all of Los
Angeles.
In lees than one year after Dr. and Mrs. Gordon moved to
Los Angeles, his father and mother, Mr. And Mrs. J. Calvin
Gordon, sold their farm in Ironton, Ohio, and joined him in
Los Angeles. His mother is a wonderful Spanish Scholar and his
father is a successful mechanic. Recently the doctor has
purchased a ranch of 130 acres at Elsinore, California, and
his father and mother will operate the same for him.
Dr.Gordon married in November 1914, to Miss Desdemona L.
Valeteen, of Providence, Rhode Island. She is a graduate of
Howard University, Washington, D.C., an ideal
Physicians wife, and, with her charming, winsome ways, has
meant very much in shaping his success as a doctor.
