Elaine Berniece Gibson Thomas, 88, passed away on Wednesday, October 29.

She was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Cecil and Irene Cobb Gibson. When she was three, her father moved her family to a ranch south of Gordon, Nebraska, where he took up ranching. She graduated from Gordon High School in Gordon, Nebraska, in 1943 and from Colorado Women’s College in Denver in 1945.

She worked in Denver for Continental Airlines as a junior stenographer until June 1946, married Orrin Westley Thomas Jr. in the Gordon Presbyterian Church in Gordon, Nebraska, on August 9, 1946, and moved to Gainesville, Florida, where he started attending the University of Florida.

Orrin moved around in his work as a mechanical engineer, and Elaine went where ever his work took him. They finally moved to Oak Ridge in 1960 when he went to work at X-10 for Union Carbide. She went back to work in 1962 for a doctor who raised mice for research and then at AEC-Atomic Energy Commission (now DOE-Department of Energy). She retired in 1989 after 22 years. [Read more…]