Gordon W. Gerber

Gordon W. Gerber, died Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at age 98, having lived at Meadowood Retirement Community, Lansdale, PA since 2006. He had previously lived in Fort Washington, PA for thirty-five years.

A lifetime resident of Philadelphia and its western suburbs, he attended William B. Mann Elementary School, Dimner Beeber Junior High School and Overbrook High School. He was a graduate of Duke University (Phi Beta Kappa) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (Order of the Coif). When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army Air Force, and served between university and law school. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was categorized as an "intelligence officer" and assigned to run airports in the China, Burma, India theater (things like the towers and the message center, not flying.)

After graduation from law school, he served as law clerk to Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Horace Stern for a year. He practiced law with his father, Harry J. Gerber, for three years in Philadelphia before joining Dechert, Price and Rhoads, one of Philadelphia's largest firms. After retiring from Dechert as required at age 73, he served (pro bono) as a Judge Pro Tem in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for twenty-three years. He was involved in many activities of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

His major outside activities included being a member of the Whitemarsh Township Zoning Hearing Board; serving on the board of Sunnybrook Golf Club for 20 years, including terms as Secretary and President; serving on the Board of the Unitarian Church of Germantown; and past master of Apollo Lodge No. 386 F&AM.

He was born on January 31, 1923 to his mother, Fern Seibert Gerber and his father, Harry J. Gerber. He had one sister, Evelyn G. Neuman. All predeceased him. His first wife, Martha Permenter, of fifty-five years, passed away in 1999. He is survived by their children: daughter Patricia Gerber Opderbeck, (and her husband Gerd) of Newtown Square, PA, and son Gordon ("Beezie") W. Gerber, Jr.  (and his wife, Laurie) of San Diego. He has two grandchildren Elizabeth Opderbeck Stout and Christopher Opderbeck. Elizabeth and husband Stephen Stout, Jr. have given Gordon three great-grandchildren: Spencer Jane, Stephen Paul III and Collins Martha.

Gordon was widowed again when his second wife of eleven years, Ethel Sunny David, died in 2017. Sunny had previously been married to another Philadelphia attorney, Clifford David, for 52 years when he passed away in 2001. She, her first husband, Mr. Gerber and his first wife had been friends for many years. Mr. Gerber and his first wife had actually attended the wedding of his second wife when, in 1948, she had married her first husband who was then a classmate of Mr. Gerber.

When he and Sunny were getting married in 2006, he said his family now included three more sons, three more daughters-in-law and eight more grandchildren and it did: Clifford C. David Jr. (wife, Patricia) and Kimber David (wife Christina, deceased) and S. Edgar David (wife,  Karen). The grandchildren are Cate, Clifford III, Sarah, Rebecca, Matilda, Allison, Cameron and Isabelle.

Services and interment are private.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to your favorite charity or the J. Wood Platt Caddie Scholarship Fund, https://gapgolf.org/platt/scholarship/

Arrangements by Huff & Lakjer Funeral Home, Lansdale. www.huffandlakjer.com