Los Angeles
County
Biographies
WILLIAM I. GILBERT
For two decades, William I. Gilbert
has been actively identified with the bar of Los Angeles and southern
California, and during this period he has achieved a position of eminence and
respect, not only as a lawyer, but as a public-spirited
citizen. He has been successfully
associated with an extraordinary number of the most important cases which have
been tried in the courts of his home city and of California, and invariably he
has acquitted himself with distinction, as the records will testify.
Mr. Gilbert is a native of
Martinsville, Missouri, where his birth occurred on August 18, 1876. He is one of the seven children, three sons
and four daughters, born to Horace W. and Trescendia
M. (Wren) Gilbert. The former parent,
who died in Watonga, Oklahoma in 1898 at the age of sixty-eight years, was a
private in the rank of the Confederate Army during the years 1861-65, and after
the close of the war he entered the practice of law, which he carried on in
both Missouri and Oklahoma.
The scholastic training of William
I. Gilbert was received in the public schools of Missouri. His attention was naturally drawn to the law
through his observance of his father’s work, and in the office of the latter he
soon began the study of legal matters.
He applied himself diligently under the fine preceptorship of his elder
and in 1895, when nineteen years old, he was admitted to the bar in both Oklahoma
and Indian Territory. He engaged in
practice for a short time in Oklahoma, then moved to
Indian Territory, and in the courts of both divisions he laid the strong
foundations of his future successful career.
Oklahoma and Indian Territory were combined as the state of Oklahoma in
the year 1907, and for seven years thereafter he was a familiar figure in the
courts of the new commonwealth. However,
needing a larger field and appreciating the advantages of the west coast, Mr.
Gilbert moved to the city of Los Angeles in December, 1913, and here he has
since been engaged in the practice of law.
Until about 1918 he was associated with former Governor Gage and W. I.
Foley under the firm name of Gage, Foley & Gilbert, after which he has
continued in the practice alone. He has
won a sterling reputation during these eventful years, and has conducted the
litigation assigned to him with rare ability, indicating exhaustive knowledge
of the law and its interpretation. Among
his contemporaries in a bar noted for its excellence, he is honored as an
ethical attorney. In the eyes of the
public he has won a conspicuous place and undoubtedly those cases with which he
is identified are generally regarded with unusual interest due to his presence. He is a member of the Los Angeles, the
California State, and the American Bar Associations, and his political
affiliation is with the Democratic Party.
Toward those affairs of public nature and of civic interest, Mr. Gilbert
has contributed the support characteristic of the loyal citizen.
On the 10th of December
in the year 1898, in Dallas, Texas, occurred the marriage of Mr. Gilbert and
Miss Lucy Witt. Mrs. Gilbert is a native
of that southern city, and is the daughter of George A. and Nancy (Buchanan)
Witt, her father having been well-known as an educator. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have become the parents
of two children, Jeanne and William I., Jr.
The son is now associated with his father in the practice of law in Los
Angeles, being the third in succession in the direct paternal line to be
engaged in the profession.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 779-780,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES