DATE: Thursday, August 7, 1997              TAG: 9708070475

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

LAWYER FRANCIS A MAN OF MIGHTY IMPACT IN TOWN OF BOYKINS

Gilbert W. Francis ``made it seem that the best place in the world for everything good to happen was Southampton County.''

That sizing up from Bobbie Naranjo typifies encomiums for him from the county's citizens following his death Wednesday at 77 of cancer at his home in Boykins.

And they testify that Francis set out, personally, to make the good things happen.

Naranjo and her husband, Dr. Jorge Naranjo of Kansas City, didn't intend to settle in a small Southern town, bereft of a doctor, when, at his invitation, they sat down to chat in his law office.

So persuasive was he that when they arose they had agreed to help the community for three years.

That was 33 years ago. The couple has raised four children there, and she is vice chairman of the county school board.

Francis championed civil rights in a very difficult time, she said, and he enabled people to look beyond immediate concerns to goals that would help them all.

``He was a good friend to the poor,'' said Dolly Goodwyn. ``If you needed five hundred dollars, he'd see that you got it.''

That was the sum she had to find some 25 years ago for her daughter Deborah's tuition at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C.

The bank wouldn't lend it to her. She went to Francis. ``And he called the bank and he said, `Dolly Goodwyn's coming in, and you let her have any damn thing she wants.' That was his exact words.''

That was at a time, she said, ``when people didn't help blacks much; but he felt if he gave you a chance you would do something.''

If her daughter had been stopped at that level, Goodwyn said, ``she would not be where she is today,'' teaching, with a Ph.D. at Virginia State University.

When she was in high school, he found her a summer job job as secretary with Boykins Narrow Fabrics.

Francis helped people secure housing and put up money for new homes. ``He was a great friend to us,'' Goodwyn said.

In the early years, his wife, Betty, was his secretary. When farmers came in with a few bills in bib overalls or with a country ham or nothing, he'd advise them, she recalls.

The town, he said, hungered for industry, and he formed a search unit and attracted several manufacturers.

``He worked to bring industry into Boykins so there would be a wage base for people who, before that, had been only farm laborers,'' said Bobbie Naranjo. ``He was so positive that he persuaded manufacturers that they would be good employees.''

And, she said, he had ``a great passion for history.'' Each year he would attend a seminar on Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia. ``He was very Jeffersonian in looking to the future.''

He helped found the Southampton Historical Society and served 10 years as its president. He and former Gov. Colgate Darden yearned for the county to honor two Civil War generals, George Thomas with the North and William Mahone with the South.

Francis led in the placing of a historic marker at Thomaston, Thomas' home. Recently, to Francis' satisfaction, the new overpass on Highway 58 was named for Mahone.

``Any time we asked him things, he seemed to have the right answer,'' said the Historical Society's Kitty Futrell. ``He knew who should be honored, and lots of times they were little persons.''

He was the only resident of the county to contribute funds to the Boykins museum, curator Hank Snow recalled Friday, and he dropped by frequently with visitors to view its collection of tools and utensils of the common people.

Lynda Updike, president of the Historical Society, noted that Francis always said what he believed and not what was necessarily politically correct.

``He's been my mentor in this job, and I really am going to miss him because he's always been there.''

He touched other areas as well. Virginia Wesleyan College's Jim Bergdoll said that Francis was a good friend to the school on the president's advisory board. He also advised trustees of Chowan College in North Carolina.

``He was a Virginia gentleman in the nicest sense,'' said businessman Charles Cooper of Norfolk. And in looking for ways to get things done for the community, Francis had an engaging trait of catching his breath in excitement.

Even in his final illness, he was helping to shape a documentary of his beloved Southampton County. Among survivors are his wife, Elizabeth Lincoln Francis; three sons, Gilbert W. Jr., Richard L., and Jeffrey K. and their families; two sisters, Deaton F. Faucette of Boykins and Natalie F. Coleman of Blackstone; and a brother, Everette S. Francis of Richmond.

Funeral services will be conducted Friday in Boykins Baptist Church, with burial in Beechwood Cemetery in Boykins. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Gilbert W. Francis died Wednesday at his Southampton County home of

cancer. He was 77 years old.

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