Horace Gibson knew it was time to cut back on his landscaping business hours when his back started giving him trouble. He was 93 at the time.
“One day he just told me, ‘Rick I think it is time I quit,’ ” said his son Richard Gibson, of Grayson. “And that was it.”
That announcement came with as much fanfare as the elder Gibson’s declaration that he no longer wanted to live alone.
“It was 2000 and he said, ‘Rick, I think I’m going to need another place to stay,’ ” the younger Gibson said. “And he’s been with me ever since. But he was still a very private man who liked to handle his own affairs.”
That included his coming and going. The elder Gibson drove until his stroke in August of last year, his daughter said.
“He was on me to take him to get his license renewed last year before his birthday in August,” said Beatrice “Bebe” Gibson, of Snellville. “And of course I took him,” she added with a laugh. “How could I not?”
Horace Otis Gibson died Saturday of complications from the stroke and other health issues, his son said. He was 95.
A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Tuesday at Tom M. Wages, Snellville Chapel, which was in charge of cremation arrangements.
Gibson was born in Lavonia and spent his life in Georgia, with the exception of his military service. His education wasn’t extensive, but his knowledge was, his son said.
“I’m not even sure if he got past the eighth grade, but he knew so much,” Rick Gibson said. “It seemed to come to him naturally.”
In the late ’60s Gibson decided to start a landscaping business in Atlanta, because he saw the opportunity new homes brought. He started with individual clients and eventually worked his way up to designing landscapes for neighborhoods under construction.
Gibson Landscaping and Maintenance went on to service apartment complexes and other commercial ventures. The business was a natural choice since he’d “spent most of his life behind a lawn mower or riding a tractor,” his son said.
“He loved the business and he knew the way a home, or a project should look,” Rick Gibson said. “And he wanted to provide a service and a finished product for customers. If it wasn’t right, by his standards, it just wasn’t right.”
Bebe Gibson said her father enjoyed his work and didn’t let his decreased mobility stop him from planting his garden behind his son’s house.
“He’d go down there with a cane and a walker,” she said. “He had a system. He’d toss the seeds and then use the cane to push the seeds into the ground.”
At the end of the day, she said, the outdoors called to Horace Gibson.
“He had to be out there and he loved to be out there,” she said.
In addition to his son and daughter, Gibson is survived by children Barbara Smith of Acworth, William “Bill” Ferguson of Suwanee, Herbert Gibson of Snellville, Michael Gibson of Bethlehem, and Susan Canon of Georgia; 23 grandchildren; and 25 great grandchildren.
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