Obituary for Anson Wright Gibson
The Ithaca Journal, Feb 21 1977, P. 6, Cols. 1-3, with photo
"Cornell Prof. Emeritus Anson Wright Gibson, 84, of 145 Forest Home Drive, died Saturday, Feb. 19, 1977, in Tompkins County Hospital.
Mr. Gibson had been associated with Cornell University from 1921 to his retirement in 1960, and was a former assistant dean of the College of Agriculture.
He joined the faculty at the State College of Agriculture at Cornell in 1921, where he had served as instructor before World War I for two years.
During World War II, Mr. Gibson was Armed Services Representative of the university and chairman of the University Committee on Student War Service.
He served on the Cornell committees on inter-faculty relations, university requirements for graduation, scheduling of public events, the educational policy committee of the college, the college publications committee and others. He had also been a member of the Home Economics faculty since 1942 and was also affiliated with State University committees. He was also a member of the Cornell Board of Trustees.
For many years Mr. Gibson also served on the board of directors of the Cornell Countryman, the student publication for agriculture and home economics students. He had also been on the board of directors for the Cornell Daily Sun and on the board of managers of Willard Straight Hall.
In the community, Mr. Gibson was active in the Boy Scouts, serving as president of the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Council from 1942-43 and as a vice president from 1944 to 1950. From 1930 to 1936 he was chairman of the Troop eight committee in Forest Home, and in 1944 he received the Silver Beaver Award.
A native of Atlantic City, N.J., Gibson moved to Greene County at age two, where he lived on a farm 20 miles from Catskill in a section that had been settled by his forefathers.
He attended a district one-room school until 14 years of age, graduating from Greenville Free Academy in 1911, He received the B.S. degree from Cornell in 1917.
He next managed a large farm near Petersburg, Va., for two years before buying his own 666-acre farm on the James River, 20 miles below Richmond, in the spring of 1919.
He sold the farm in 1921 and returned to Cornell to bring a tangle of alumni records into order. He then did studies of former students and their records which were used to help guide educational policy. Mr. Gibson also worked in some graduate study in rural education and agricultural economics and attended the graduate school of Harvard, receiving his master's degree from Cornell in 1928.
He served as associate secretary in charge of former student relations, vocational guidance and placement from 1928-34; assistant professor from 1934-37; and professor in personnel administration from 1937 to his retirement, with additional role as director of resident instruction in 1940.
Mr. Gibson also was secretary-treasurer of the Alumni Association of the State College of Agriculture and had been national president of Alpha Gamma Rho.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Kerr McCabe Gibson; a daughter, Mrs. Sally Noel of Falls Church, Va.; two sons, Anson Wright Gibson Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., and Philip Gibson of Norwalk, Va.; and 11 grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Gibson celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary on April 23, 1969."