The Mark and Mary Gibson Family
As told by Mary

I was born in Osceola and raised on farms in southern Iowa, the oldest of seven children. Mark was raised in central Iowa and is the oldest of three children. His father was a school teacher and coach for many years, and then worked as a physical therapist at the VA (Veterans' Administration) hospital in Knoxville until retirement. His mother also had a teaching degree but chose to stay at home with her children until they were in school with the exception of one semester of part-time teaching. She worked in a factory job for two years before they moved to Indianola in 1960, soon after which she attained a position at the Military Entrance Processing Station at Fort Des Moines. She retired from work at the Fort Des Moines facility after 25 years and currently works as a dispatcher for the Indianola Police Department. Mark's father is at the Good Samaritan Care Facility due to advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease.

My mother supplemented our family income from my high school days by working at Murray Products, then managing and operating a restaurant. She learned to drive a car when I was about eleven-years-old. There was always a big garden and lots of canning and freezing vegetables and fruits to make sure there would be enough to eat. Some of my most pleasant early memories are of sitting under a shade tree with Mom and my sisters shelling peas or snapping beans while we talked and laughed the afternoon away. There are also good memories of coming home from school to the wonderful fragrance of fresh cinnamon rolls, doughnuts or cookies coming from the kitchen.  Those were times of less hurry and pressure, although there certainly was little time to be idle. Free time was pent in lots of reading and being outdoors doing simple activities that required no purchase of equipment or toys.

Mark's family moved to Murray, Grand River, Melcher and Indianola during his growing up years; mine moved three times but stayed within a three mile radius. My earliest memories of school are of a one-room school called the Foland School and those were good experiences and gave us a good education. Our teacher for those years (kindergarten through first semester of third grade for me) was Edith Ball. Some of her methods would be frowned upon today, but she was a very competent, independent lady and, when I began "town school", I was ahead of other students in some ways.

Mark and his parents have enjoyed many forms of inquiry about the world around them. Mark, his father and brother were involved with go-cart racing and they made family vacations of their hobby, traveling to Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.  His parents also traveled rather extensively in the years after their family was raised, before Dale's illnesses.  I, on the other hand, am not a good traveler, preferring to stay close to home and family. Perhaps there will be a time when I can enjoy that as I know Mark would like to see parts of the country and world. Mark's dad was able to realize a lifetime dream when he purchased a small airplane and acquired his pilot's license a few years after I became acquainted with him.

Mark began working at part-time jobs at the age of 13, beginning with a newspaper route and going on to gain experience in a bakery, landscaping, factory work, farming, auto mechanics, and several other areas.  He has an associate degree in auto mechanics from Indian Hills Community College at Centerville, followed by a job with Lentz Chevrolet in Indianola for several years. He also has acquired a great deal of education in various work related classes in his employment and is considering continuing his education with more classes in the near future. He married Sandra Hunnerdosse, but they divorced when their child, Jeff was a little more than a year old. Mark became accustomed to spending every weekend with Jeff and it was devastating to him when Sandra and Jeff moved to Oklahoma, where she eventually remarried.

I could not have done all this without a lot of patience and support on the part of Mark and the rest of my family. It was difficult, to say the least, but I hope we will be able to say in the end that it was worth it. The graduate degree came about because I was offered an assistantship to Dr. Bill Williams who was the Assistant Dean of Education at Drake.  That was a great experience for me but I had to give it up in order to take the counseling job at Clarke Elementary, which is my position now. Mark also had to give up a position on the school board for me to be eligible for the job.  He has filled that time with other worthwhile activities and I have very much enjoyed my work.

It is amazing how all this has come together. The learning and experience that I gained from working in the ADAA are vital to my work with children and families in my current position. Through the four and half years experience of training and working in that field, and my own family experiences, I have gained a deep awareness of the tragedy of chemical addiction and the devastation it causes in many families and in all of society.

I truly believe that many of the problems we see with children today are directly related to substance abuse by the adults in their lives.  Direct effects are sometimes in the areas of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAE) and there can be numerous indirect effects such as family conflict, financial problems, legal problems, etc. The result is that children's lives and society in general, are so much more complicated than they need to be. I am aware that there are persons who can use alcohol and still have productive, satisfying lives. I am convinced that it is not possible for me, but I do not judge those who include those kinds of choices in their lifestyles. I have found nothing that improves for me with the use of tobacco or alcohol and have had little desire to experiment in those areas.

I sometimes think of the contrast between today's lifestyles and my own family. We grew up fairly poor in terms of material possessions, but we had lots of good guidance and good times together.  There was not much affection shown by hugs and words in my family, but there was never much doubt that our parents cared about us.  There are many children now who lack that assurance for various reasons. While I believe most parents do care deeply about their children, many situations that they perceive as uncontrollable prevent their showing this through consistent interactions with their children. The realities of two working parents or single parenting, in a society which has rather forced this plight upon them, produce very different sets of circumstances than those dealt with by past generations.

Somehow we have to find new ways to understand and live out the rules. How wise was the African native who came up with the proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child." I believe we must all think seriously about how we become part of that "village" for every child with whom we have contact in our daily lives.

Many people have difficulty understanding the role of a school counselor. What I do mostly in my counseling role is try to be there when a student needs to talk with someone who can be fairly objective about school or friendship problems. At the age of 9 or 10, which is the beginning age of the students I work with, there are not a lot of occasions when students wish to talk extensively about family issues, but are moreconcerned about acceptance by their peers and/or academic issues. I try to be a good listener when that kind of thing arises.

As a counselor, I would not advise clients about how they should deal with any situation. My role is to facilitate their personal search for what has meaning to them. I try to help them discover some alternative options for their lives and gain confidence in their natural ability to make some good choices for themselves. I believe it is important for children to recognize all the resources they have in their lives to which they can turn when in need of assistance, so we often talk about good times they have spent with significant adults.

There are so many difficult decisions, that I didn't have to make, that young people face today. I am convinced that if our society is to continue thriving we must begin to pay more attention to the emotional and social needs of our youth.  We form organizations and committees and talk and talk and have the best of intentions but things don't change very much. We must be willing to make some financial sacrifices and time commitments to provide recreational opportunities for preteens and teenagers and to keep them involved in the community. We need to look at the small percentage of our youth that are able to find fulfillment in school sports programs since only the most talented are usually included in these and the same ones are in so many different sports activities.

We are thankful that Megan is energetic, multi-talented and enthusiastic about so many things. There are many young people like her who take advantage of challenging opportunities and make the best of what is available. Faith in God and being involved in the church fellowship are important parts of Megan's life and ours. She is in Youth Fellowship and in a liturgical dance group that performs twice a month during nine months of the year. This is an expression of worship that would not have been conceivable to her mother a few years ago but it has been a pleasure to watch her and the other girls grow in this way under the guidance of Anne Murr.

Her school activities include band, chorus, cheerleading, some sports, and a full load of academics. She is excited to have been chosen as a flag twirler for the band and a Conflict Manager for her freshman year coming up.  She has taken dance lessons under Nancy Patterson and Juli Snell for several years and has enjoyed assisting them with younger classes for the past three years. She enjoys babysitting for neighbors and friends when there is time in her schedule, and for the past year she has experienced something new in building a relationship with her horse, Promise. She has become pretty good at managing and saving her money and purchased Promise with her own funds. We are pleased that she does so well and try to let her know we are there for support, although we encourage her to take responsibility in an independent fashion as much as possible. The independence part is fine with her these days!

I am especially proud this year of the way she has participated in an experience of a mother/daughter entrepreneurship.  I read about this opportunity in the Des Moines Register for mother-daughter teams to create a business. We submitted written applications, were interviewed and chosen for the M.A.D.E. I.T. (Mothers and Daughters Entrepreneurs in Teams) in March, 1997, along with eleven other teams in Iowa. We attended a week of business training on campus at Drake in June and had the experience of staying together there in the dorms. We were fortunate to have been chosen one of two winners in the competition and were sent to the national competition in Kansas City, Missouri, in October.   

Jeff finished high school in Indianola after returning to Iowa in the summer before his fifth grade year. He lived two years in Pleasant Hill where he became acquainted with Betty Arnold, who has kept track of him to this day. He then moved with his mother, stepfather and two brothers to a farm home south of Indianola, less than a mile from his mother's parents, and became a "young farmer" while finishing his school years at Indianola.

Jeff's mother was divorced again several years ago so he became the "man of the family" at a relatively young age. He enlisted in the Army Reserves and served nine months in Hungary during Operation Joint Endeavor. His training in the Reserves and natural propensity for "fixing things" (perhaps a "chip off the old block"?) have earned him a good position with TMC, a large trucking company in Des Moines.  He has been offered a position as co-manager for the new shop they are opening soon in Ankeny. He and Stacia Smith were married March 15, 1997, and live in an apartment in Indianola. We wish we could see them more often too, but we all know we can count on each other to be there when needed.  Jeff is a great help and comfort to Mark's mom since he is near enough to be available and they have always been "kindred spirits".

Mark's family seems very small compared to mine. His dad has very few living relatives now and his mother's sister died this past summer leaving only a few distant cousins for her as well. On the other hand, my mother came from a family of eighteen children who are mostly still living. My dad was the oldest of five children. Of course I have many cousins, but the years have seen us go in so many different directions that we have lost touch in most cases. Mark's family has also been special to me in many ways. His parents have always been supportive of my schooling and in other ways which has meant a lot to me.

Mark's brother, Alan, and sister-in-law, Pat, are in upper New York State retired from the Air Force. Alan is currently the city manager in Morrisonville. Kayla, Mark's sister, and her son, Devon, live in Colorado Springs where she works in a civilian position for the Air Force as a computer graphics technician. The few family vacations Mark and I have taken in our years together have been mostly visits to his brother and sister who have lived in various parts of the nation. We wish we could spend time with them more often but all our lives are very busy.

My parents are now semi-retired near Grand River, although Dad still works a pretty full day with his business of selling and servicing livestock and horse trailers and Mom certainly is still the busy companion helping to keep things running on "the farm". My sisters and their families are in Washington D.C., Columbia, Missouri, and central and southern Iowa. Our brother is deceased. We were close as growing children in many ways and have kept relationships strong throughout the years even though our lives have taken some pretty different directions.

The tragedy of our brother's death has, perhaps, brought us even closer because of the deeper understanding of life's fragility. Alcohol had become the cruel "master" in his life, leading to events which brought painful realizations that there are things in life we cannot control, in spite of a very strong desire to do so.  On a less serious note, our closeness as siblings includes the fact we were very close in birth order, some less than one year apart. I can't imagine being able to manage seven children in seven and a half years, and then continue that monumental parenting task for the rest of your life! I have a great deal of admiration for my parents in the efforts they have made.

As with all families, there have been some difficult times for ours. In November, 1989, Mark collided with another commuter on his way to work in the morning fog and sustained a fractured cervical vertebrae. He had to wear a "halo" for two months and a neck brace for three more and was off work that long. My intestinal fortitude was seriously tested when the screws of the halo were forced into the sides of his forehead.

Mark, on the other hand, was quick to rebound and even to find some humor in the whole situation. Evidence of this was his placing Christmas lights (connected to a battery pack in his pocket) around the top of the halo for attendance at some Christmas events with friends and church members. There was mention of this in one of Frank Morlan's columns in the newspaper. I  can only chuckle also when I recall some of the looks of other motorists as we drove down the highway those weeks while he wore that device!

Those months were some of the times I have had to learn to trust God's promise that He will not allow more to come to us than we can bear. While the kind of work Mark does on a daily basis is conducive to occasional accidents and he continues to put himself (or at least his fingers and toes) in compromising situations, he has decided against another of those "lengthy vacations". The fact that he has such a strong work ethic contributes to his sometimes being in the right place at the wrong time. Probably these are things that will be remembered about him by many through the years.

When I think back about my life, I realize that as an 18-year-old, I certainly couldn't have anticipated all the twists and turns my life has taken....but, who does? There are reasons why we can't see into the future and it is surely a blessing! I think of the many times when, for no logical reason, people have come into my little comer of the world precisely when I needed them the most.  Their being there has been beyond human arrangement or explanation, but they influenced and helped me so much. My church involvement is an example.

My parents didn't attend church and didn't see that they had time to take us there. But, when I was 9 or 10, a neighbor persuaded them to let her take us to Sunday school and church with her. This probably continued until I was about junior high age. That is only one example of how people have contributed to my salvation and the good quality of my life.

Mom continued to take us until I was old enough to drive myself and my younger sisters. There were Sunday school teachers who influenced me immensely. One in particular that I remember made me realize, for the first time, the magnitude of what Jesus did for us. I can still remember beginning to comprehend not only that the nails went through Jesus' hands, but that he chose to submit to that. Even then I'm sure I only understood the tip of the iceberg.  

I can't imagine being able to make such a choice.  I would like to think that, if it were necessary, my caring for others would bestrong enough for me to make that kind of sacrifice, but I am not really sure that I would be able.

I continued to attend Sunday school and church until my senior year of high school. There followed some years when I strayed away from church attendance, but I picked it up again after my third child was born. My faith in God literally became lifesaving in many ways. I can't imagine what life would be like without my Christian faith. I've wondered how people survive some of the terrible situations that come in life without the knowledge that God is there for them.

One of those times in particular for me was when my brother took his life because of alcoholism and deep depression along with serious physical health problems.  I remember telling Reverend Judy Miller how much I regretted not having had the opportunity to say some things to him. She told me that, in God, we can have the assurance that there is still a level at which we can communicate with the living spirit of our loved ones. That is hard to explain and some people might interpret  it as weird or some kind of psychic phenomenon; but I have come to know there is a very important aspect of him, and all of us, that lives on after the body dies.

Saint Paul wrote that we need to look for what cannot be seen with our eyes; "for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18 RSV). I also think often of 1 Cor. 13:12, which tells us that "now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see (clearly)". I've been told that a mirror at that time was a polished piece of metal, so the image would have been distorted. However, there will be a time when all that is not understandable now will be shown to us plainly. At times I feel I can hardly wait for that time! In the meantime, I believe there is a part of my brother that still knows I care very much about him, and a "spirit", which is part of him that lives on, that helps the Holy Spirit bring comfort to me when I need it.

Much of my comfort and ability to cope with the tragedy of my brother's death came through the ministry of others.  Many of the people who had a part in that wouldn’t have thought of themselves as ministering, but, because they knew Rolly and were able to look past the weaknesses and tragedies of his life to see the true person, they gave assurances in simple, but important ways. What a comfort that has been!  I hope God will allow me to do that for others.

I have come to believe in angels who are sent to earth to bring God's comfort and guidance, because of people who came into my life unexpectedly and ministered to me and my loved ones in ways that are beyond usual human capacity. Maybe someday we will all be angels doing God's ministry here. Perhaps he wants us to be about that even now. I pray if that is so, that he will make me able!!

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Last Revised July 1, 2012