Cymala Nitschmann Gibson, 77, died Oct. 8, 2021, at her home in Hinsdale.
Cymala was born in 1944 near Stuttgart, Germany. She immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s and landed first in Springfield, where she graduated high school at Ursuline Academy. She moved to Chicago, where she lived in Outer Drive East until moving to Oak Brook, with her husband, Thomas M. Gibson. They married in 1974 and later moved to Graue Mill in Hinsdale. The Gibsons also had homes at various times in Vail, Colo .; and Wellington and Jupiter Island, Fla. She became a U.S. citizen in 1994.
Cym was a petite powerhouse, standing only 5 feet tall, but daily hefting a 20-pound barbell until recently. She was an avid skier and had been a gymnast as a teenager. Among the charities who recognized her for her support were Boys Town and the March of Dimes, which named her Outstanding Committee Chair in 1990. In 2006, she won a second-place Silver Medal in the American Lung Association’s “Tackle the Tower” challenge, in which participants climbed the stairs of the 31-story Oakbrook Terrance Tower.
Cym was preceded in death by her brother, Edmund.
She is survived by her husband, Thomas Gibson; her sister, Lilli Nitschmann; her stepdaughters, Linda Gibson and Carol Gibson; her stepson, Terry Gibson; her nieces, Caroline Christina (Michael) Nitschmann and Monica (Jordan) Nitschmann; her grandnieces, Charlotte Elisabeth Mitchell and Madeline Bernice Mitchell; and her godsons, Gordon Walker and Andrew Bartkus.
Family and friends will gather at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 15, at Sullivan Funeral Home, 60 S. Grant St., Hinsdale.
A service will be held at the funeral home at 10:30 a.m. Interment is private.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Residential Hospice Foundation, 5440 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Troy, Michigan 48098 (online at https://www.residentialhospicefoundation.org).
