[1] He became the president in 1914 when the school was known as Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, replacing James Hugo Johnston.
His paternal grandfather, Ed Gandy, had emigrated to the United States from Ireland.
[1] While on the faculty at Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, Gandy married Carrie Senora Brown.
They had four children, of which three survived: Theodore, Marian, and John, Jr.[1] Gandy died of natural causes in 1947 and was buried in Blandford Cemetery.
[1][3] The John Manuel Gandy Papers, Johnston Memorial Library, Virginia State University.