Elzer Beatty Robinson (he prefers the initials E.B.) was born in Bernice, Louisiana, at the home of his grandparents. The elder of two sons of Elzer Beatty, a pharmacist, and Sarah Carnelite Docier Robinson, he was six weeks old when the family moved to Homer, Louisiana, where he grew up. E.B. played football as a running back at Homer High School, where he graduated in 1939. A pre-med major, he attended Louisiana Tech for a semester and played football. Injured, he transferred to Centenary College in Shreveport on a football scholarship. E.B. enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October of 1942 in New Orleans. "My daddy told me I was going in the Navy, and so I had no reason to dispute him." After boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center he was selected to train as a medic. He was first sent to the naval hospital in New Orleans, where, he recalls, he gave a medical check-up to the actor, Robert Taylor. He then shipped out to the South Pacific, landing first at Bora Bora, then New Guinea where he served as pharmacist mate aboard LCI-971, an infantry landing craft. Much of the time the craft was used as a utility ship. "We crossed the equator, I think, fourteen times," he recalls. E.B. returned to the States after the war and was discharged in February of 1946. He entered Louisiana State University, finished medical school, practiced a year in Jonesboro, Louisiana, and served his residency at Confederate Memorial Hospital in Shreveport. Four years later he opened a practice in Bossier City specializing in general surgery and family medicine. On October 27, 1950 he married Margaret Straughan. (They would have four children, two living grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.) He helped found Bossier Medical Center in 1965, and served on its board before retiring in April of 1989.