Rev. June Adams Gibble worked her way into ministry as an editor, writer and biblical scholar for the Church of the Brethren. She also helped hospice patients as a chaplain, a role she continued even after she became a hospice candidate and, later, patient.
In 2006 Rev. Gibble was found to have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, said her husband, Jay.
“It’s a terminal diagnosis — you just don’t know when,” he said. “It was really a test of her own faith. She dealt with it very well.”
Rev. Gibble, 70, died of complications from ALS Thursday, Sept. 20, in her Elgin home. She had lived in Elgin since 1977.
Rev. Gibble, one of seven children in a Church of the Brethren family, grew up on a farm in Rockingham County, Va. According to family lore, her hopes of going to college might have been derailed without strong, behind-the-scenes lobbying by her grandmother.
In 1959, she graduated magna cum laude from the Church of the Brethren-affiliated Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Va., with a degree in religion and education, family members said. She married for the first time in 1960.
The couple lived in Illinois from 1961 to 1964. Family moves over the next 10 years took Rev. Gibble from Virginia to Maryland and finally to Minnesota, where the marriage ended in divorce in 1976.
In 1977, with two daughters in tow, Rev. Gibble took a job with the Church of the Brethren general offices in Elgin as an editor and writer.
“It was a way for her to reconnect with the church,” her husband said. “She was mostly editing, but people noticed she was a good writer.” His wife, he said, worked on religious education materials and one of her biggest projects was a pastor’s manual.
She met Jay Gibble in the late 1970s when he was a representative of the church from Pennsylvania. The couple married in 1982, blending her two daughters with his four children.
“My mom always wanted to have six children,” said Brenda Morrison, one of her daughters. “When she and Jay married, she got those six kids.”
In 1997, Rev. Gibble moved from the church’s general offices to become associate pastor at Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren under senior pastor Rev. Don Shank.
“She did everything she did with enthusiasm and with love and with commitment to Christ and to the people she worked with,” Shank said.
By 2003, Shank was a chaplain at Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin and recommended Rev. Gibble for an opening there.
Ed Hunter, chaplain and director of pastoral care for the hospital, said Rev. Gibble had a special ability to connect with patients, even with those unable to speak, often using carefully selected scriptural readings.
She was “a wonderful, caring, compassionate pastor who would bring her gifts to our patients who were nearing the end of their lives,” Hunter said.
Rev. Gibble continued to minister after the diagnosis. “She went through that year with such grace,” Morrison said. “She walked the whole family through that. She gave us the gift of hope.”
Over the years, Rev. Gibble began making special gifts for each of her grandchildren — a painting, a poem, an afghan and a photo album.
“That started a long time ago,” her husband said. “But the diagnosis meant she had to get those finished.”
Rev. Gibble did finish the gifts, which included crocheted afghans for grandchildren to give to their own children.
Other survivors include daughters Laurie Hoecherl, Pam Chestnut and Peg Gibble; sons Jim and Doug; her father, David Adams; sisters Kay Rittenhouse, Mary Grace Adams and Karen Wyrick; brothers James, John and Lowell Adams; 18 grandchildren; and 5 great-grandchildren.
A memorial service for Rev. Gibble will be held at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren, 783 W. Highland Ave., Elgin.
