Jean Gibbon Thomas

THOMAS, Jean Gibbon, left this world to rejoin her husband, Boyce, on August 13, 2008. Born May 24, 1922, in Charlotte, N.C., she was the daughter of Richard Parks Gibbon of Charlotte, N.C., and Helen R.H. Leard of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Growing up on her family's farm, she graduated from Derita High School and attended King's Business College. While working at Devoe Paint in Charlotte, she met her future husband, R. Boyce Thomas. Following a correspondence courtship, they married on November 12, 1944. After Boyce returned from World War II, they started their family with Victoria Thomas Ruths and then Robert B. Thomas Jr. She moved to Richmond, Raleigh, N.C., and back to Richmond, supporting her husband's career and lovingly rearing their children. Along the way, she was a Sunday School teacher at Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., a skilled seamstress and quilter, an active "band mom" for Tucker High School and welcoming hostess to the neighborhood kids and all her children's friends. She is survived by her sister, Hilda Gibbon Kiser of Winter Haven, Fla.; daughter and her husband, Richard Allan Ruths, of Beaufort, N.C.; son and his wife, Susan Jane Byrom, of Norfolk, Va.; granddaughter, Elizabeth Fisher Cook and her husband, John, and their sons, Jack and Thomas of Charlotte, N.C.; grandson, Jeffrey Aaron Fisher and his sons, Cole and Forrest, of Durham, N.C.; granddaughter, Audrey Corbin Thomas Shoup and her husband, Robert Shoup, and their son, Benjamin, of Norfolk, Va.; granddaughter, Jean Campbell Thomas of Portsmouth, Va.; and granddaughters-in-law, Jenna Leigh Evans of Virginia Beach, Va., and Kara Lynn Evans of Norfolk, Va. Funeral services will be held at the Woody Funeral Home, Parham Chapel, Saturday, August 16, 2008, at 1 p.m., with a visitation one hour prior. Interment Westhampton Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, donations may be make to Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, 600 College St., Oxford, N.C. 27565.
This obituary was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.