In Memoriam

David Hood Franks, Jr.

Hood Franks died on February 10, 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Here is his obituary, followed by an essay he wrote for our 25th Reunion Book.

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Obituary

David Hood Franks, Jr. was born in June of 1942 in Wichita Falls, Texas, the month after his would-be wife, Betty, was also born in Wichita Falls. He lived with his parents and sisters in several Texas towns before moving to Amarillo. There he met Betty at Sam Houston Junior High School in the eighth grade. After high school, Hood spent four years in New Haven, Connecticut, where he graduated from Yale University in 1964, majoring in Religious Studies.

He and his high-school sweetheart, Betty Lowe, married in 1964, then they headed for Houston where Hood attended medical school. He received his M.D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1968. Further medical training included an internship in Portland, Oregon.

Hood served two years as Chief of Field Health in the U.S. Public Health Service in Mt. Edgecumbe, Alaska between 1969 and 1971. The next move took the family to the Dallas area where he completed his internal-medicine residency at Southwestern Medical School. Hood then completed his medical training with an oncology fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Private practice in medical oncology took the family to Phoenix, Arizona in 1975, where Hood treated cancer patients during his career of thirty-three years. He was board-certified in both internal medicine and medical oncology and licensed to practice medicine in both Texas and Arizona. He was a member of numerous medical associations and enjoyed his hobbies of reading, bird hunting, and gardening (so many onions!).

His long medical career was a source of great pride and professional fulfillment. But his later years in retirement allowed him to fully appreciate the admirable adults that his children had become, and that became one of his greatest joys. He was so proud of all of his children and grandchildren, and their successes in their lives. His wife, Betty, was the love of his life, and they were happily married for fifty-one years.

During retirement, he worked tirelessly and without complaint to assist Betty with her disability challenges. When looking back over all the accomplishments, events, and actions that took place in his life, Hood deserves to be extremely proud of the results. We honor him and wish him Godspeed on his final journey.

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Essay, 25th Yale Reunion

by Hood Franks

May 1989

For the past fifteen years I have practiced medicine as a medical oncologist. This experience has produced some remarkable changes in my notions regarding man and his humanity. In short, we are not what we think we are. Of necessity, ours is a world of illusion, and the illusions are the mainstays of our “sanity.”

My understanding came by means of a process. The process began when I encountered unexpected difficulties in communication with my patienets. Facts which I considered signiicant or of neutral import carried great symbolic meaning for my patients. I began to glimpse the unique way in which we all construct our universe. Each person’s universe has its own reality and points of manipulation. Superimposed upon each universe was a societal world view of collectively held values. I came to understand that maintaining the illusion of control over “reality,” by whatever means, was an underlying goal of most human endeavor. Predictability predicated on order is everything.

With this prism, I have enjoyed a fascinating journey through other worlds — ancient and classical history, religious history, and literature. My conclusions are few, but the quest has been wonderful.