Dr. Robert B. Gaston

Robert Bernard Gaston (December 7, 1919 - August 23, 2015) Robert Bernard Gaston was born December 7, 1919, in Gastonburg, Alabama. His parents, Emmet and Harriet, raised Robert and his siblings, Helen, Emmet Jr., Hugh, and Eloise, in Gastonburg. Gastonburg was a small town with a population of approximately two hundred people and had three local general stores. Gastonburg’s main attraction was its railroad depot. Robert recollected that as a boy it was entertaining for him to go to the depot with his friends and see the trains pass by. His favorite train was called the “banana train’’, which consisted of a train car filled with produce, especially bananas. A man in the produce train car would throw bananas to the children as it passed through town. As an adolescent, Robert spent most of his time studying at school and working on the family farm. Before school, Robert was responsible for feeding the livestock and milking the cows. After school, Robert would return home to collect cotton and again milk the cows and feed the livestock. Robert left Gastonburg prior to his senior year to attend Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee. After graduation, Robert went to Vanderbilt University where he later received a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1941. Robert joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps in December 1941 for a proposed one year service. Four days after Robert enrolled in the service, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, and he spent the next five years serving in World War II. In 1942, prior to his deployment overseas, Robert married the love of his life, Gloria, in Rustburg, Virginia, which was near the area where Robert was stationed. Robert and Gloria welcomed their first and only child, Bob, into the world on January 8, 1946. During his childhood, Robert admired his grandfather and aspired to be a physician just like him because of his grandfather’s noticeable role in the local community and his ability to make sick people well. This aspiration led Robert to enroll in the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in 1948. Robert graduated from medical school in 1951 and returned to Nashville, where he interned at Nashville General Hospital and Saint Thomas Hospital. In 1953, Robert began his own practice in Donelson. In 1959, Robert and four other physicians formed the Donelson Medical Group (now known as Summit Primary Care), where he practiced family medicine until 2010. According to Robert, the most gratifying moments of his life were being married to Gloria, having his son, Bob, and watching him graduate from medical school and join him in the practice of medicine in the same group for over 30 years, and being able to observe his son and his two grandsons grow up and mature to be the men that they are today. Robert felt blessed to lead a very good life and to be fortunate to remain physically, spiritually, and mentally healthy into his final years. Robert’s sharp memory and fondness for sharing his life with others sustained him to remember his life experiences and gave many people a pivotal place in those memories. He was a loving husband, proud father, caring physician, loyal friend, and consummate Southern gentleman. Robert will be greatly missed by those that had the pleasure of knowing and loving him.