Mary Alice Gibbons was born December 11, 1932 in Anadarko, Oklahoma the only child of Roy and Irene Gibbons. She graduated from Duncan High School in 1950, where she excelled in speech and debate. In the summer before her senior year she attended the “Cherubs” Institute at Northwestern University for debate. In their senior year she and her partner, Jeanette McDonald, were state debating champions going on to win a tri-state tournament. She also excelled at extemporaneous speaking and discussions.
She graduated from Wellesley College with an English degree in 1954 and married on September 11, Dr. Benjamin Brown Jackson. They lived in Boston while he finished his residency in vascular surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital and welcomed their son Ben into the world.
They would settle in Louisville, Kentucky where Roy then Suzanne were born. While raising her children, she taught fourth grade at Emmet Field School. She left teaching to attend the University of Louisville Law School, where she won the prize in contracts, graduating in 1965. She built then managed two apartment buildings, the Chatham and the Deerfield.
After her husband’s death in 1976, she became more interested in practicing law and was admitted to the Kentucky Bar in May of 1978 and began as a general practice lawyer. Her aging parents drew her back to Anadarko and she was admitted to the Oklahoma Bar in 1984. She opened a law office on west Broadway and bought the historic Dixon home on West Central.
Upon her dad’s death in September 1988, she partnered with her mom in managing the family farms, a wheat, alfalfa, and Angus cattle operation. She continued practicing law until her retirement in 2005.
In 2010 she suffered a stroke with complete left side paralysis and became a resident of Brookhaven, now Ignite, in Norman, Oklahoma where she spent her time devouring mysteries and thrillers, cheering Thunder basketball, attending movies at the Regal Cinema, making new friends and winning at bingo.
She was preceded in death by her parents and husband.
She is survived by her son, Ben Jackson Jr. of Oklahoma City and Ada and his wife Keywood; her son Roy Jackson of Edmond; her daughter, Suzanne Jackson of Anadarko, and grandchildren, Robert Jackson of Oklahoma City, and Mary Jackson of Austin, Texas, and other loving family.
Service will be held at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Chickasha on Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. The family will receive friends at a visitation Wednesday, December 15th from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Ferguson Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers the family asks that a donation be made in May Alice’s honor to the Chickasha Soup Kitchen.
Interment will be in Fairlawn Cemetery under the direction of Ferguson Funeral Home.