MARYSVILLE — For many people, living in the same town for more than 60 years means you were probably born there.
For Verna Gibson, her years in Marysville add up to barely more than half her life.
Gibson celebrates her 100th birthday Sept. 1, and while her friends and neighbors help her with food shopping and other errands, she’s lived on her own in the same apartment for the past 15 years.
“I wasn’t expecting to get this old,” said Gibson, whose husband Lawrence passed away in 1984. “I don’t smoke or drink, and I walk.”
Gibson was born Verna Leidle in the small town of Herried, S.D., which boasted a total of 700 residents. She and her five brothers lived with their parents in what Gibson acknowledged to be a rustic lifestyle.
“The roads weren’t paved, but they were kept in good shape,” Gibson said. “There was no running water in our house, so we had a cistern to catch the rain water for our laundry. Our town had a bank, a grocery store, a meat market and a barbershop.”
Gibson still recalls watching silent movies, with a player piano providing the background music, and watching baseballs games played in farming pastures.
“There weren’t any seats, so you either sat in your car or stood out in the sun to watch,” Gibson said. “Nobody wore uniforms. They just played games in their work clothes. It was still thrilling to watch.”
Gibson laughed as she remembered fixing up old shoes with cardboard in those days, a story which a number of younger relatives have accused her of making up.
Verna met Lawrence Gibson, who hailed from the more metropolitan Minneapolis, on a blind date. Before their marriage, she worked at the city’s Rothschild clothing store demonstrating cosmetics.
Verna and Lawrence moved to Washington after visiting one of her brothers, who touted the state’s mild weather. Like her father, who served in the Spanish-American War, her brothers all survived their service in the military. The first year that the Gibsons lived in Washington, they were hit with a snowstorm, but Verna never stopped loving her new home state.
“I’ve been to New York and San Francisco, and they’re a little bit too much,” Gibson said. “I still think Washington is the greatest state.”
Lawrence’s teaching career took him through a tour of Burlington, Concrete, Marysville and finally Everett before he retired at 62. After they arrived in Marysville, Verna made herself busy working at the Oosterwyk Dutch Bakery on Third Street and attending services at the Marysville United Methodist Church, where’s she’s not only the oldest parishioner but also the one who’s been there the longest.
After Lawrence’s passing, Verna stayed active by volunteering at the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce Visitor Information Center up until 10 years ago and winning the runner-up title for a Granny Smith poster model contest at the age of 83. While she’s adjusted to many changes in her life, she’s still apprehensive about flying, having only taken her first passenger flight 20 years ago, and is often struck by wonder at what’s been accomplished during her lifetime.
“When the astronauts landed on the moon, it was unreal,” Gibson said. “It was like something you’d see in a movie. Sometimes I can hardly believe I’m this old. Thank God I’ve been able to live on my own for this many years.”
The members of Gibson’s church celebrated her birthday by taking her to a Seattle Mariners game, while her two adult children, Judy Heitzman and Mark Gibson, threw a birthday party for her to see her four grandchildren, five great-children and many other relatives.
