Gail and Joe Pond

Gail and Joe met the first week of their freshman year at Vanderbilt University. Joe grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and Gail in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. They dated through college and married in 1962, the week before Joe started medical school at Vanderbilt and Gail began work on her Masters in English. Thus, they both have two degrees from Vanderbilt.

Upon completion of her master’s degree program and while Joe continued with his medical studies, Gail taught junior high school English in Nashville.   Joe received his MD degree in 1966, and they moved to Charlottesville where he did his internship and residency at the University of Virginia; Gail, again, taught junior high school English. 

Joe, after spending two years (1968-1970) in the United States Navy as the medical officer for a destroyer division in Florida, returned to UVa to finish his residency and do a fellowship in cardiology.  The Ponds then moved to Lynchburg in 1972 where Joe joined Drs. Sackett, Glenn, Harris, and Burger and practiced internal medicine and cardiology for the next 33 years.  He served as President and Managing Director of this multi-physician practice for many of those years.  Joe also held the positions of President of the Centra staff, Director of the Electrocardiography Lab, Chairman of the Coronary Care Unit Committee, and Co-founder of and Co-director of the Cardiac Treatment Center which later became part of the Stroobants Heart Center. Once Joe retired, he became an active Master Gardner and spent many hours tending his 150+ hostas and other plants in his shade garden.

Joe’s first name is Trellou which is Cajun French. He is a junior, named after his father who was named after his father’s Cajun friend. It causes confusion but is easily pronounced: Trell-you

The Ponds have two daughters: Cathy in Lexington, Virginia, married to John Wranek and Tricia in Athens, Georgia, married to Scott Miller. They have three grandsons: Evan Wranek age 21, Will Wranek age 17, and Warren Miller age 11.   

Gail, in addition to managing the Pond household and raising their two daughters, volunteered over the years in the public schools and at Peakland United Methodist Church where she and Joe are members.  For the last 36 years she has volunteered at Jefferson’s Poplar Forest where she is a docent and the Collections Manager.  In this capacity she has managed the historic collection and the library, work that has required many hours of research which she thoroughly enjoys.

Gail and Joe moved five times after leaving Vanderbilt. Living in Lynchburg for 49 years they find that with years of accumulated “stuff”, the move to Westminster-Canterbury has been much more complicated than those earlier ones.  Needless to say, they are looking forward to being settled into a new home