Gordon Tolbert

Gordon Lane Tolbert

03/12/1941-10/22/2013

Gordon went to be with the Lord October 22, 2013 after a long illness. He played a good hand with the cards he was dealt. After a difficult childhood and nursing his dying father at the age of 16, he went on to serve in the US Coast Guard as a Gunner’a Mate during the Vietnam era advancing to E-5 in only 4 years, became a real estate appraiser with only an 8th grade education, and co-founded the family’s title research business 28 years ago which has extended to three generations.

He was a committed and faithful husband and father through 51 years of marriage and taught his children and grandchildren the value of commitment, hard work and using the gifts God gave them. Nobody was a stranger to him and he had a clever sense of humor. He loved being outdoors fixing or building things, tending to the land and the farm they used to have, but fishing was his favorite. He taught many a grandbaby how to catch a fish at Palmetto State Park in Ottine, Texas, and at the coast in Rockport, Texas. He knew God and believed that his family was his mission field. His angels surrounded him in his last days, and he passed peacefully in his sleep after a long illness before it got too cold (he did not like winter!) to go fishing in the big lake above where we will see him again (1 Thes 4:13-18).

Gordon is survived by his widow, Barbara Joan Sawicki Tolbert, of Gonzales, Texas, his son Gordon G. Tolbert, his wife, Sharon, grandsons Dustin and his wife, Sally, and Preston Tolbert; daughter Elizabeth Anderson and grandchildren, Jonathan Anderson and his wife, Nicole, and great-grandson Logan; Jeremy , Matthew, Jensen, Hayley and Jadyn Anderson; daughter, Suzanne Jennyfer Sakiewicz and her husband, Ed, and grandsons, Eddie, Brenton and Alek Sakiewicz; his sister, Joy Kreusel, and many nieces, nephews and cousins, all of San Antonio, Texas. He was the youngest of six and is predeceased by his parents, Raymond and Elizabeth Tolbert of San Antonio, brothers, Raymond, Leland and Billy, and sister, Dorothy Wade. 

Visitation with open casket will be Monday, October 28, 2013 at 12 noon to 1:30 pm at Southside Funeral Home, 6301 S. Flores St., burial at 2:30 pm at Ft. Sam Houston with full military honors.