EARNESTINE JOY HARPER GILBERT, 71, began a new
life peacefully at her home on May 7, 2004. It
is a new life free of the cancer with which she
lived courageously for almost four decades. Burial
was at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery.
She was born in Ranger, TX on Aug. 21, 1932, to Myrtle
Pauline Blankenship (RHS-1928) and Charlie Earnest
Harper (RHS-1929). Joy was in the Ranger High School
Class of 1949.
She worked hard to raise her family and support her
children through college. She also worked diligently
to assist her husband John's work during his long
career in the Methodist ministry and touched the
lives of many in the communities in which she lived
and served with him, including Ranger, Brady, Shiner,
Lockhart, the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi,
Victoria and Austin. After her family and the church,
her main interests were reading, sewing, quilting,
painting and cooking. To be loved by Joy Gilbert was
to know unconditional, complete and non-judgmental
love.
Joy leaves behind her husband, John C. Gilbert, the
former Senior Pastor of the First United Methodist
Church in Austin; a son, Gib Gilbert and his wife,
Debra of New Braunfels; a son, John Gilbert and his
wife, Elaine and their children, Clay and Jenna of
Dallas; a brother, J.D. Harper (RHS-1953), and wife,
Imogene (RHS-1954) of Austin; and a brother, Charles
Harper (RHS-1960) and his wife, Joyce (RHS-1954) of
New Jersey.