your great-Grandma Giberson passed away.
I hope it will help you see what an amazing person that she was.
It is impossible to describe my mother’s life into 1500 words of a life sketch and I am sure if each of my seven siblings wrote a life sketch for her, they would all be very different. I will only highlight the key aspects of her life including the typical milestone moments normally included in these things.
Eileen Jane Owen was born on October 19, 1934 in Corvallis, Oregon. She was the fourth and youngest child of Robert Vester and Olevia Lois Purinton Owen. She had two older siblings who were living- an older brother, Robert Vester Owen Jr. “Bob”, age 10, and an older sister, Lois Leith Owen, age 6. Another brother, Gene Franklin Owen, had died as a baby in 1930.
The first several years of her life were spent in the hillsides of Western Oregon while her dad worked as a farmer. She learned to love nature and exploring and loved the freedom that life in the country at that time allowed her. She was not afraid of frogs and snakes and taught us to love and respect nature as well. Sometime in the 1940s, her dad and brother moved to Portland to work and the family soon followed. Mom graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon, and then spent one year at Linfield College before heading to Provo, Utah, to study home economics at Brigham Young University. She was the only one of her siblings who attended college.
As an adult, she had dark brown hair and green eyes. She was thin to average build most of her adulthood. She was 5’6” tall.
During the winter semester of her first year at BYU, she met and fell in love with Richard Creighton Giberson. They got engaged before the end of the semester and spend a summer apart, writing mushy letters back and forth to each other. Dad did make one trip to meet her parents in Portland and Mom reported that they liked him but worried he might not be talkative enough for Mom. That did not prove to be a problem and they were married on September 14, 1954 in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple.
They spent Dad’s last year of school as poor college students at BYU where Dad graduated in chemistry. They had their first child there—a daughter, Judith Ann Giberson on July 1, 1955 and shortly afterwards moved to Richland, Washington, where dad started his first job. The rest of their eight children were born in Richland: Todd Creighton (Oct. 18, 1956); Michael Allan (Oct. 16, 1957); Robin Eileen (Aug. 18, 1959); Valerie Kaye (Apr. 4, 1961); Lynette Rae (March 13, 1963); Richard Owen (Feb. 8, 1967); and Scott Aaron (April 22, 1969).
Eastern Washington was a stark contrast to the green of Western Oregon, but she grew to love Richland. She was active in the Church, especially in music, drama, and serving. She played the piano and sang in choirs. She and Dad were so busy with Church service that she once said that one of their goals one year was to be home at least four nights a week (one of them anyway.) I can remember playing in the Cultural Hall during many roadshow practices. My mom was a faithful journal writer where she tracked the many daily happenings of her life and that of her family. She also wrote her mother almost weekly who still lived in Portland. Her writing also included things like road shows and programs for the Relief Society sisters. She also found time to write poems.
Another love of hers was sewing. When we were little, it was out of economic necessity that she sewed many if not most of our clothes, especially for the girls. She continued to sew as we were older, and it was fairly common that she would sew us a new dress for special events or activities. She told me once that she found sewing to be very relaxing. When we were adults, she branched out into making quilts. Many of us have a quilt that she tied and finished for us.
My mom cultivated a wide range of friends and friendships with women were very important to her. She and dad also had couple friends and hosted fun parties and played games with their friends while we were sent to our rooms early.
They remained in Richland until 1971 when our family moved to Amarillo, Texas, for my dad to take a new position there. Dad along with hundreds of scientists had been laid off earlier that year and was without full-time work for several months. I remember my mom and dad having confidence that things would work out but did not think it would be a thousand miles away in Amarillo, Texas.
My mom faced this move with the same confidence and faith that had guided her life up to then. She made friends, served in the Church, played the piano and later the organ, and raised her children in the plains of West Texas without “losing a step.” She continued to write in her journal, write letters to her mom in now far away Portland, and to develop her many talents. It is in Texas when I first remember her speaking in Church and she was a great speaker. She taught Relief Society at different times there and I can remember people telling me that she was such a great teacher when I would visit after I went away to college. I know that she put a lot of time and effort into doing whatever she had been called to do the best that she could and in the way that God wanted it done.
As we began to get older, Mom with the help of dad began to develop some creative family nights and family activities for the family. Two specific ones were the Family Home Evening Phantom-where we dropped off goodies on Monday nights on the doorstep and ran; and the Family Home Evening Theatre where we invited families to come over to present skits to each other- these included prizes and a traveling plaque.
My mom loved books and learning. She taught us to love reading as well. She liked fiction as well as non-fiction. She enjoyed studying the scriptures.
My mom had to deal with migraines and hay fever. I am not sure exactly when they started for her, but they really became a problem in Amarillo. After years of suffering with migraines, she discovered that she had a broader range of allergies than she even realized and avoiding many of those foods improved her migraines in her later life. Other than that, I think my mom was a fairly healthy person.
It was a surprise in 1981 when she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. This made a significant impact on her life. Her health declined and her life became more restricted. She was unable to play the organ or lead music or serve in the ways that she expected to. My youngest brothers were only 12 and 14 at the time. She had to miss the wedding of my sister, Valerie, in 1982. I remember her saying at one point during this time that “It was a blessing to be at home all of the time, because with three young adult children and two junior high sons with crazy schedules, I am home when they need to talk.” That is how my mom dealt with life. She was a ‘smell the roses’ kind of person and always was looking for the good and the growth in life.
After a family prayer and fasting, my mom and dad made the decision for my mom to seek a heart transplant in Stanford, CA. With so many miracles, this took place in June of 1985 and with it, my mom got a new “life” and she was able to return to Texas and live for 9 ½ more years. She lived those years such like she lived the first fifty—with faith, love, and confidence. She loved all of the in-laws and enjoyed the many grandchildren who joined the family. She wrote letters to us wherever we were at and kept track of our children and their special events.
She and dad enjoyed traveling. She was able to make a trip to Hong Kong with Dad to visit us where we were living at the time. They also visited historical sites in Texas and other nearby places, went to Memphis to visit old friends, and made a couple of trips to Oregon to visit her family and enjoy Oregon.
In the last year of her life, Mom began to experience some side effects of the medications that she was taking to prevent rejection. She was experiencing issues with her skin and other things. Despite this she was able to make a long-planned trip to the International Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Dad for their 40th anniversary in the fall of 1994 and then they made a trip to Utah in December to visit Valerie and her family.
In January of 1995, she had a short hospital stay due to lung issues. A few weeks later, she fell outside and split her shin which required a hospitalization to prevent infection because her skin was too brittle and could not easily be sewed together. A few days later, she developed problems breathing and in the early morning hours of February 5, 1995 at the age of 60, she passed away. She was buried on February 9 in the Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, Texas.
On her grave marker, it reads: She wore out two hearts for us.
As you can see, she really did.
Written by Judy Hall
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