Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Drive-by parade honors 100-year-old
Given restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 crisis, having a birthday could be a lonely affair if you’re living in a retirement community.
Not so for Evelyn M. Gibson, who turned 100 Wednesday.
Family and friends saw to it that Gibson, a retired nurse, did not enter her second century in life alone.
At 2 p.m., they staged a drive-by parade at Keystone
Villa at Fleetwood in Blandon, where Gibson lives.
Standing outdoors, a jubilant Gibson greeted family and friends as they drove through the Villa portico, waving and shouting Happy Birthday.
Nearby, a group of Villa residents sang “Happy Birthday.”
Occupants of the vehicles were given cupcakes courtesy of Keystone Villa, which also provided a birthday cake.
“It was so nice to see the residents cheering for Gram,” said Amy Botwright,
Gibson’s granddaughter. “I just wanted to hug her, but we had to make the best of it.”
Botwright, box office manager at Kutztown University’s Schaeffer Auditorium, turned 45 on Monday. With birthdays only two days apart, Botwright said, they normally would have celebrated together. Usually, she said, it would be “something involving dessert.”
Gibson graduated from the nursing school at Roosevelt Hospital in New York in 1944. In 1950, she had her husband, Ernest Gibson,
moved to Shoemakersville.
Gibson worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital before transferring to Reading Hospital, where she became head nurse in the outpatient clinic. She retired in 1980.
A longtime volunteer, she was a member of the Shoemakersville Fire Co. auxiliary and Shoemakersville Senior Citizens.
“She’s always been so active in the community,” Botwright said. “It was so good to see her getting outdoors and being active.”