Dr. Homer Pharis Gamboe, 83, who with his wife, Frances Waller Gamboe, was a Christian missionary to India, died Thursday, December 15, 1977 after an extended illness.

Beginning in 1921, Dr. Gamboe served 33 years as a missionary in conjunction with the Central Christian Church and its mission board in Indianapolis, Ind.

After returning to the United States in 1954, the Gamboes spent 11 years in Indianapolis with the Mission Board of the church as a lecturer. He retired in 1965 and became the first curator of the Cane Ridge Meeting House Shrine in Bourbon County and remained in this position for six years.

Dr. Gamboe was a member of the historic South Elkhorn Christian Church and an honorary member of the Central Christian Church. He was also a member of the John D. Hamilton Masonic Lodge of Madison County and an honorary member of the Indian Association of the University of Kentucky.

He held degrees from Transylvania University, the Lexington Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago.

A native of Lexington, he was the son of the late Rev. William S. and Tacie Alice Pharis Gamboe of Clark County. (Rev. Gamboe passed away at the Olney Sanitarium in 1913 while he was pastor of the Elm Street Christian Church in Olney.)

Survivors included his widow, Mrs. Frances Waller Gamboe, formerly of Winchester; two daughters, Mrs. Franklin (Rachel) McGuire of Lexington, and Mrs. Maurice (Alice) Marshall of Windermere, Fla.; seven grandchildren, Kevin, Melanie and Waller in McGuire, all of Lexington; and Maurice, Stuart and Laura Marshall of Windermere, Fla., and John P. Marshall of Evergreen, Colo, and a sister, Mrs. Hester Spears, Winchester.

Burial in Winchester Cemetery, Winchester, Kentucky.

The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) – Saturday, December 17, 1977