"FRANK J. RUNYON, M. D. Well established vantage place as one 
of the representative physicians of northern Tennessee is that
held by Dr. Runyon, who is engaged in the successful practice 
of his profession, at Clarksville, the thriving capital and
metropolis of Montgomery county, and in his profession he is 
honoring the vocation which was dignified also by the life and 
services of his father. He is a liberal and public-spirited citizen 
and during a residence in Clarksville for a quarter of a century 
he has not only built up a large and important practice but has
gained and retained the confidence and esteem of the entire community.

   Dr. Runyon was born in the village of Trenton, Todd county,
Kentucky, on the 9th of October, 1862, and is a representative of
old and honored families of the fine old Bluegrass State, within
whose borders both his father and mother were likewise born. He is 
the younger of two children, and his brother, Chas. D., is now a 
resident of Clarksville, Tennessee, where he is engaged in the tobacco
warehouse business. The Doctor is a son of Dr. Freeman Runyon and Susan
B. (Ware) Runyon. both of whom passed the closing years of their lives
at Trenton, Kentucky, where the father was long engaged in the practice 
of his profession, in which he achieved marked success and in which his 
ministrations were accorded with all of self-abnegation and devotion, 
so that he gained the affectionate regard of all who knew him, as did 
also his loved and gracious wife, both having been zealous members of 
the Baptist church and he having signalized his convictions by close 
adherence to the cause of the Democratic party. Dr. Freeman Runyon was 
graduated in the medical department of old Transylvania University, at 
Lexington, Kentucky, and was a man of fine intellectual and professional
attainments, as well as one whose deep humanitarian spirit prompted him 
to faithful service in his chosen calling. His field of professional 
endeavor was in Todd county, Kentucky, from the beginning of his practice 
until the close of his long and useful life.

  In the public schools of his native town Dr. Frank J. Runyon gained 
his preliminary education, and there after he pursued higher academic 
studies in Bethel College, at Russellville, Kentucky. Entering the
University of Louisville, in that excellent institution he was graduated 
as a member of the  class of 1884 and from which he received his degree 
of Doctor of Medicine. The greater portion of the succeeding year he passed 
in New York City, where he took a post-graduate course in the celebrated 
Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which likewise conferred upon him
the degree of Doctor of Medicine, in 1885, and in this connection he
also gained most varied and valuable clinical experience, so that when 
he engaged in the practice of his profession he was specially well
fortified for its exacting duties. He was engaged in practice at Trenton,
Kentucky, until 1887, when he came to Tennessee and established his 
home at Clarksville, where he has continued his earnest and effective 
labors as a physician during the long intervening years, and where he 
has won and retained the confidence and good will of all with whom he 
has come in contact in the varied relations of life. He is an appreciative 
and valued member of the Montgomery County Medical Society, the Middle 
Tennessee Medical Society, the Tennessee State Medical Society, and 
also holds membership in the Tri-State Medical Association and the 
American Medical Association.

   In politics the Doctor is aligned as a stalwart supporter of the 
cause of the Democratic party, though in local affairs of a public
nature he does not hold to strict partisan lines, preferring to give 
his support to the men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment.
Both he and his wife are devout members of the Baptist church, and 
he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon 
College fraternity. Reverting to the family history, it may be stated 
that Absolom Runyon, grandfather of the Doctor, was a native of Kentucky 
and became a prosperous farmer near Richmond, that state, the lineage 
of the family being traced back to French origin, and that of the Ware family,
of which the Doctor's mother was a member, being of staunch English derivation.
The original progenitor of the Runyon family in America came from France 
in 1763.

   On the 23d of June, 1885, was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Runyon 
to Miss Brenda Vineyard, who was born and reared in Kentucky and who 
is a daughter of the late Professor Bryce W. Vineyard, of Trenton, that 
state, an able and distinguished educator. The two children of this union 
are: Bryce Freeman, M. D., who was graduated in Louisville in 1882, and who 
is now serving as interne in the New York Polyclinic Hospital of New York; 
and Charles Vineyard, who was graduated in the law department of University
of Virginia, and who is now engaged in the practice of his profession in 
the city of Memphis, Tennessee."

Source:  A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and 
representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities by 
Will T. Hale Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1913