SERVICES:  Monday, December 18, 2023

Graveside

11:30 a.m.

INTERMENT:  Highland Cemetery

VISITATION:  Monday, December 18, 2023

Jones and Son Funeral Home, Hattiesburg

10:00 - 11:00 a.m.

Graveside services for Mr. Mack Graham Gibbons, Sr., age 90, of Hattiesburg will be held at 11:30 a.m., Monday, December 18, 2023 at Highland Cemetery.  Bro. Brad Brownlee will officiate the service.  Serving a pallbearers will be Zeke Powell, Carey Varnado, Brian Kenney, James Moore, John Craft, Robert D. Bland III, and Mack Gibbons, Jr. as alternate.

Mack Graham Gibbons, Sr., had his appointment with the Lord on the evening of December 13, 2023.  His daughter, Sharon, and son-in-law, Carey Varnado, were at his bedside in their home where they had cared for Mack since 2020.

Mack was born January 13, 1933 at the South Mississippi Charity Hospital in Laurel, MS. His family was the fourth generation of Gibbons to farm in Covington County where his great great grandmother, Louisa Gibbons, was a founder of Shiloh Baptist Church. At thirteen, Mack was baptized in the creek that flowed beside the church. His education began at Smith School where he completed the 10-year-curriculum. After the death of his father in August 1949, Mack helped his mother pick the family's last cotton crop and used the profit to pay his father's farm and medical bills. While attending Salem School for eleventh grade, Mack drove a school bus for income. He attended senior year in Mize; in 1951, he became the only child in his family to achieve a high school degree. Mack married his Covington County sweetheart, Carolyn Bland, in 1952. He served the U.S. Army from '53-'55; because Mack took typing in high school, he was supply clerk for an engineer battalion stationed in Germany. After honorable discharge, he attended college on the GI Bill and earned a B.S. degree in business from Mississippi College while managing the Stonewall Jackson Motel in Jackson, MS where he lived with Carolyn and their first child. With his college degree in hand, Mack worked primarily in the Hattiesburg area and had a successful business career as a building materials store manager, a real estate agent, and a home builder. Mack and Carolyn loved to travel stateside and abroad. They drove their camper van on a roundtrip to Canada to celebrate their 50th anniversary. In retirement, Mack and Carolyn were founding members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USM where they both discovered their talents as artists. Mack painted and wrote many poems as well as his autobiography. Even in his last decade, Mack was always curious and open to new ideas, a voracious reader, and had a good sense of humor. He was a man of Christian faith and looked forward to being with his beloved wife, Carolyn, again.

Mack was preceded in death by his wife, Carolyn Sue Gibbons; son, Robert F. Gibbons; parents, Frank and Ruby Gibbons; and 12 siblings.

He is survived by his son, Mack (Diane) Gibbons, Jr. of Hattiesburg; daughter, Dr. Sharon (Carey) Varnado of Hattiesburg; grandchildren, John Casey (Dr. Sarah Irvin) Black of Columbia, MO, Kimberly Anne (Brian) Kenney of Laurel, and Jennifer Leigh (Erik) Dewitt of Oak Grove; and great grandchildren, Ryleigh, Reagan, and Zachary Kenney and Jackson and Katherine Dewitt.