The Bill and Joan Gibson Memorial Fund honors the lives of the parents of Full Life Care’s longtime Executive Director Nora Gibson. The Gibsons fully supported their daughter’s work and utilized the services of the organization. They are remembered through your generosity.
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Full Life Care
Attn: Bill and Joan Gibson Memorial Fund
4712 35th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98118
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In Loving Memory, William Miles Gibson (1925-2018)
Dr. William Miles Gibson, born October 8, 1925, passed away on July 29, 2018.
Bill was born and educated in Canada and continued his studies in England and the United States. He and his wife, Joan, settled in Vancouver, BC, where he worked as the first pediatric rheumatologist in Canada. He moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1965 to work for Ohio State University in the pediatrics department. He established the Nisonger Center at Ohio State as a university-affiliated center. It focused on human development and trained interdisciplinary departments on how to work with persons with developmental disabilities. He completed his career at Hershey Medical Center at Penn State University.
In addition to his career in the medical field, Bill was a loving husband to Joan Gibson and father to 10 children, grandfather of 30 and great-grandfather to one.
After the Gibsons moved to West Seattle, Bill became the primary caregiver to Joan, who lived with dementia. He was assisted in this effort by Full Life Care programs: Memory Care and Wellness (an enhanced adult day health program), Home Care, and eventually Gaffney House, where Joan passed away.
Bill took up playing bridge at the local senior center and once he learned the new bidding system, he often won the quarters (about $4) that everyone chipped in. His friends and fellow bridge players marveled at his knowledge of the trees that line streets of West Seattle. He was a forester as a young man.
He was also a lifelong pacifist, civil rights activist and advocate for people with disabilities.
Bill lived at Providence Mount St. Vincent for the last 2 ½ years of his life. He was actively involved in planning his own care in his last years. As he grew frailer, his kindness and sense of humor remained. He was known for his love of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team.
Bill Gibson requested that contributions in his memory be made to Full Life Care via the Bill and Joan Gibson Memorial Fund.
In Loving Memory, Joan Gibson (1926-2013)
Joan Gibson, born August 14, 1926, passed away on September 29, 2013, at Gaffney House, a Full Life Care memory care home. She was survived by her husband of 62 years, Dr. Bill Gibson, 10 children, 21 grandchildren, and one step-grandchild.
When Joan and Bill moved to West Seattle several years before her death, Joan became the “Queen of the Junction.” As her Alzheimer’s disease progressed, Joan was supported by Full Life Care’s Home Care program and attended Memory Care and Wellness Services provided at Full Life’s South Seattle Adult Day Health Center. In her final months, Joan lived at Gaffney House, an assisted living facility.
She finally, with the aid of hospice and the exceptional kind and loving care of the Gaffney House “family,” found her “Way Out” in full peace and with the presence of her long-gone mother, Pearl Campbell. “My mother is with me nearly all the time now,” Joan often said to her daughter.
Joan’s greatest legacy included a career as a social worker, as well as successfully raising 10 children. They and her grandchildren have had a positive impact on society through their life’s work.
