San
Joaquin County
Biographies
NED BURKE GOULD, M. D.
During the years which mark the
period of Dr. N. B. Gould’s professional career he has met with gratifying
success, and throughout the time of his residence in Ripon he has won the good
will and patronage of many of the leading citizens and families of the
place. He is a great student and
endeavors to keep abreast of the times in everything relating to discoveries in
medical science. He was born at Old
Monterey, California, May 8, 1880 a son of Maj. George S. and Augusta
(Churchill) Gould. Major Gould was born
near Augusta, Maine, in 1831 his parents being farmer folk in that state, who
removed to Indiana in 1840 and engaged in farming
there. When nineteen years of age,
George S. Gould joined a party of friends, among who was his brother James,
bound for California to seek their fortunes.
The party came via Panama and in due time arrived in Hangtown, where
they prospected and mined for nine years; then George S. Gould returned to his
home in Indiana. About the time he
arrived in Indiana the Civil War broke out and he enlisted as a volunteer in
the Sixty-eighth Indiana Infantry and served throughout the entire period of
the war, being discharged with the rank of major. During the war he was married to Miss Augusta
Churchill, whose English ancestors were early colonizers of Massachusetts. The young people established their home in
Sparta, Indiana, where Mrs. Gould remained until the close of the war when her
husband returned and they removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Major Gould
engaged in the merchandise business.
Owing to the illness of one of their sons, the family home was broken up
and in 1876 they came to California and soon thereafter settled in Watsonville,
where Major Gould established a grain and merchandise business; he also
acquired a ranch property and range land in Monterey County, whither he later
removed with his family. A portion of
his estate is located near Parkfield, California. Major and Mrs. Gould reared a family of eight
children, all of whom survive with the exception of the eldest daughter. For many years he was commander of the G. A.
R. post in Monterey County and for years represented the Western Meat Packers
as buyer. Major and Mrs. Gould were among
the founders of the Baptist Church at Parkfield, where they had resided for
forty-two years of their useful lives and this venerable couple lived to
celebrate their sixtieth anniversary of their wedding day. In November, 1920 Mrs. Gould passed away at
the age of eighty-two, her husband surviving her until May, 1922 reaching the
advanced age of ninety-one.
N. B. Gould began his education in
the schools of Monterey County and in 1902 was graduated from the State Normal
School at San Jose; then for two years he taught school at Gonzales and San
Benito earning enough to enable him to enter the Cooper Medical College in San
Francisco, and during his four years’ course taught in night school in San
Francisco to help defray his expenses.
In 1908 he was graduated with high honors with the degree of M. D. He then spent four months as interne at the
French Hospital, San Francisco, where he completed a year’s work within that
time. After leaving the hospital, Dr.
Gould was employed as chief surgeon for the Alaskan Packers’ Association and
was located at Chinook, Alaska, where this company operated two large canneries
employing 1,200 men. His eight months’
experience with this company was both profitable and enjoyable and one never to
be forgotten. Returning to the United
States in 1909 he located in Gonzales, where he practiced his profession for
three years.
On January 31, 1909 at San
Francisco, Dr. Gould was married to Miss Agnes Safely, a daughter of James
Safely, a descendant of a prominent Scotch family and a pioneer of Napa
County. Mrs. Gould is a graduate of the
University of California and of Lane Hospital, San Francisco, as R. T. N., and
at the time of her marriage to Dr. Gould was head of the surgical department of
Mt. Zion Hospital, San Francisco. Dr.
and Mrs. Gould are the parents of two children:
Jeanette and Anna. In 1913 Dr. Gould
left Gonzales on account of the failing health of one of his children and the
family settled in Ripon. He enjoys a
large and lucrative general practice and perhaps his most outstanding work is
the establishment of the Ripon Hospital, and in his practice he has attained
high rank, having a comprehensive knowledge of the great scientific principles
which underlie his work. In his
fraternal relations, Dr. Gould is identified with the Mt. Horeb Lodge, I. O. O.
F., the Masons at Manteca and the B. P. O. E., No. 218, Stockton, and in
politics he is a Republican. Dr. Gould
devotes a limited portion of this time to his realty interests. He owns property in Monterey County, in Stockton,
and two ranches near Ripon, all of which are leased.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1312-1315. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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