James Ellsworth Gibson
James Ellsworth Gibson, 72, of Chattanooga, died on Sunday, May 23, 2021.
He was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on November 24, 1948, later moving to West Virginia and then Ohio. He graduated from St. Peter’s High School in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1966 and The Ohio State University, in Columbus, in 1971.
He had a long career in the appliance business, working for companies like Tappan and White-Westinghouse. This eventually brought ‘Hoot’ – as many of his friends and colleagues called him – to Tennessee in 1979, where he lived for the rest of his life, bar a brief return to Ohio in the 1980s and a few years in north Georgia in the 1990s. At various times he traveled extensively for work, enjoying multiple trips to Europe, Asia, and Mexico and always recounting various misadventures with his trademark sense of humor. He retired as director of materials from Whirlpool in Cleveland, Tn., in 2007.
Although he was a happy adoptee of the South, he remained a life-long, and long-suffering, fan of Cleveland’s professional sports teams. (His love of Ohio State football proved more rewarding.) After retiring he embraced his favorite pastimes: exploring historical sites in Chattanooga and the South in his convertible with the top down (and with the occasional stop at the craps tables in Mississippi casinos), sampling the delights of Southern cuisine, planting flowers around his patio, reading books from his extensive library, watching classic Hollywood films, and listening to music (everything from Bach to the Beatles, with a lot of jazz in between), often with a well-made cocktail in hand.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Wilbur E. and Lucille (O’Haren) Gibson, and brother Thomas O. Gibson, all of Mansfield, Ohio; and sister Jeanne Groth, of Pottstown, Pa.
Family left to enjoy his memory include daughter Carrie Gibson and her husband Chris Stanford, of London, England; son Michael Gibson, of Chattanooga, Tn.; Rose Gibson, of Lebanon, Tn.; stepsons Steve Hunter, of Danville, Ky., and Scott Hunter of Lebanon, Tn., and their families; his sister, Patricia (Frank) Kunz, of Mansfield, Ohio, and numerous nieces and nephews and their families.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to your favorite charity in honor of Jim.
A service will be held at the Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, OH, on Saturday, August 7, 2021, at 10.30 a.m.
Please visit www.heritagechattanooga.com to share words of comfort to the family.
Arrangements are by Heritage Funeral Home, 7454 E. Brainerd Road.