Eva Gibney

Eva Ann “Taffy” Gibney, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, realtor, small retail businesswoman, competitive card player, and intrepid adventurer passed on to her next adventure at the age of 88, on December 4, 2019, surrounded by family and friends.   In her honor, a Celebration of Life service will be held on December 27, 2019 at
1 p.m. at Daniels Funeral Services, Carlisle Chapel, in Albuquerque.  See www.danielsfuneral.com.

Eva brought a joyful exuberance and an enduring strength to everything she did.   

She was a lover of people, ideas and fun.   At her 85th birthday, every guest told a story about her competitive spirit.   (She was fiercely competitive even when teaching her grandsons to play poker or playing shuffleboard at the Albuquerque Solo Club.)    Her grandchildren claim that she left every person that she met a better person as a result of her undemanding love, her intelligent engagement, and her commitment to joyously putting one foot in front of the other, even in the toughest of times.   She invited nieces and hitchhikers who needed a place to stay into her home for six months at a time.   She was a loyal friend when her friends needed her most. 

Eva hosted many a gathering at her time-share, made time for family weddings and memorials, journeyed around much of the United States and Europe, and later traveled to Hawaii, Florida, Singapore, Ireland, Germany, and Puerto Rico with one or more of her children.  But she was equally happy watching the birds or squirrels in someone’s backyard.

Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on November 2, 1931, Eva moved to Kansas City, Missouri at an early age. 
She was the daughter of parents that she adored:  Mary Elizabeth Anderson and Harry Elmer Tatman.  Mary was the rule maker and Harry the source of fun projects when he returned from sales trips that kept him away for months at a time.  Eva’s older sister, Margaret (Maggie), and her younger brother, John, were her very best friends throughout their lives.  

Eva graduated from Kansas City’s Hogan High school in 1948.   There Eva gained the nickname “Taffy”, a derivation of her maiden name.   She left college at Incarnate Word College in San Antonio after a year and moved to St Louis to complete a business course.   Taffy first worked in Kansas City and then followed her mother’s exhortation to “see the world.”   She was employed as a secretary for the CIA and for the National Commander of the American Legion in Washington, D.C. and then, in 1953, Taffy and a good friend from Kansas City transferred to Japan.

In Japan, Taffy worked as a secretary for the Department of the Army.   She adventured:  she climbed Mount Fuji, skied in the Japanese Alps, and learned to cook Chinese and Japanese food from the nuns expelled from Mao’s China.   
 In Tokyo, she met her future husband, Louis Garland Gibney, Jr, on a blind date set up by Lou’s sister.  When Taffy returned to the States in the spring of 1954 to care for her dying mother, she and Lou exchanged frequent letters.
Taffy and Lou were married in August 1955, months after her mother’s death and Lou’s return to the States.

For fifteen years, Taffy was a military wife and mother who carried out her duties with flair and hard work.  She had
four children in eight years, while moving four times in the US and to three different bases in Germany. 
While stationed in Germany, Taffy and Lou traveled broadly in Europe, made life-long friends with German families and with other expats, and traveled great distances to make sure their children knew their grandparents and cousins.

After retiring from the military, Taffy and Lou moved to Corrales and then to Los Alamos, N.M. in 1970.
There Taffy stepped up to support her family first as a secretary, then a realtor, and a time-share saleswoman. 
Taffy and Lou divorced in 1976 when the combination of Taffy’s accident-related stroke and Lou’s recovery from alcoholism proved to be too much for their marriage to endure.  

When Taffy moved to Albuquerque in the early 80’s, she worked as a commercial realtor and later owned and operated a children’s used-clothing store.  Taffy was a key partner in raising her grandson, Chris, living with him and his father for many years.   She had an active social life at the Albuquerque Solo Club, played bridge, bowled and golfed. 

Taffy was a strong woman who overcame overwhelming odds after suffering a major stroke at 41.  Her commitment
to her children and her can-do attitude somehow enabled her to re-learn to speak, do math, and make complex decisions.  Neurologists who looked at her MRI in 2018 said that it was “impossible” that she had accomplished this recovery.   After her brain was re-injured in the summer of 2018, all who cared for her were amazed by how gracefully she endured the limitations of her speech and movement and that she still had fun as she waited to recover again.

Taffy is survived by her daughter, Theresa Gibney (Jeff Igelman), her sons: Louis Gibney (Yvonne), Patrick Gibney, Timothy Gibney (Amanda), and her grandsons: Ryan Essex (son Gioni Essex), Christopher Gibney, Colton Gibney (Christina), by her sister-in-law Mary Ann Tatman, her nieces: Kathleen McCabe, Mary Dempsey, Karen Sammons, Catia Hirsch, Patricia Hirsch, Susan Hirsch, and Elizabeth Campbell, her nephews: Michael Dempsey (Sharla), Chris Tatman (Patricia), Rick Hirsch, and Jim Hirsch (Beth).  Taffy was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Margaret (Tatman) Dempsey and Maggie’s husband, John Paul Dempsey, her ex-husband, Lou, and her brother, John William Tatman.

The family is deeply grateful for the extended caregiving provided by Kathleen, Rick, Genevieve and Maria, the staff of Presbyterian Hospice and Brookdale, by Judy, Pattie and Kayla, and the strong hands-on engagement of all family members in her 18 months of care.