Merle was the oldest daughter of the six children of Houston Lamar Giffin, Jr. and May Eva Ricks. She grew up on the family ranch near Goodlett TX and attended West Texas State Teachers College in Canyon TX where she was the freshman cheerleader(top photo, 1930). In August 1934 she married Gibson Bradshaw of Roanoke, Randolph County, AL. She and Gibson spent their happiest years in Denver CO and were the parents of three children: Robert Gibson, Jr., Barbara Joan (Robinson), and Sandra May (Miller). Gibson retired in 1950 and returned the family to Roanoke where he began work on establishing a cattle ranch. However, he and Merle were divorced in Sept 1954. Merle returned to Denver for several years and then moved for various periods of time to Albuquerque NM, Sitka AK (2nd photo), Pensacola FL, back to Albuquerque, and finally to Montgomery AL to be near her son. She twice remarried during this period, first in Denver to Ralph Lowell McMichael and second in Albuquerque to Thomas Elbert Johnson, but those marriages did not last. She never stopped loving Gibson and she legally took back his name. Merle is buried with her parents in the Goodlett Cemetery, Hardeman County, Texas.
Merle was the oldest daughter of the six children of Houston Lamar Giffin, Jr. and May Eva Ricks. She grew up on the family ranch near Goodlett TX and attended West Texas State Teachers College in Canyon TX where she was the freshman cheerleader(top photo, 1930). In August 1934 she married Gibson Bradshaw of Roanoke, Randolph County, AL. She and Gibson spent their happiest years in Denver CO and were the parents of three children: Robert Gibson, Jr., Barbara Joan (Robinson), and Sandra May (Miller). Gibson retired in 1950 and returned the family to Roanoke where he began work on establishing a cattle ranch. However, he and Merle were divorced in Sept 1954. Merle returned to Denver for several years and then moved for various periods of time to Albuquerque NM, Sitka AK (2nd photo), Pensacola FL, back to Albuquerque, and finally to Montgomery AL to be near her son. She twice remarried during this period, first in Denver to Ralph Lowell McMichael and second in Albuquerque to Thomas Elbert Johnson, but those marriages did not last. She never stopped loving Gibson and she legally took back his name. Merle is buried with her parents in the Goodlett Cemetery, Hardeman County, Texas.
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