Linda Carol Fries Gibson of Glen Allen was a "family woman," her daughter said, and always wanted to help out.

Linda Carol Fries Gibson's "rats" had covered National Football League games, college football games, the Super Bowl and golf's Master's and U.S. Open tournaments.

Vehicles that move television cameras up and down the sidelines of the action and swivel quickly with the cameraman to catch a special moment, her "rats" were home-engineered by her son-in-law and first husband after they were asked if they could build something like that for cameramen.

For the past 10 years, the New Jersey native had marketed her "rats" through her Action Equipment Co. to the television industry in the United States and Canada. Before that, she was co-owner for 25 years with her first husband of T&B Equipment Co., which put up bleachers and scaffolding for camera towers for NBC sports events around the country.

During the past two years, since her diagnosis of cancer, Mrs. Gibson struggled to keep her business alive while undergoing treatment and watching her disease disappear in some places and appear in others on CT scans.

Her ability to communicate was hampered after a laryngectomy last summer, and her rapidly progressing disease made her weak, said her daughter, Melisa "Missy" Sirles of Henrico County.

"It took so much out of her. All she wanted to do was bake banana bread with her grandchildren, and she couldn't do it. She tried. She was a giver and always wanting to help out. She was trying to be there for everyone and was mad that she couldn't be there to help people. She was a family woman."

On Thursday, Mrs. Gibson's battle came to an end at her Glen Allen home. She was 58.

A funeral will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at Woody Funeral Homes' Parham Chapel, 1771 Parham Road. Burial will be in Westhampton Memorial Park in Henrico.

Her proudest moment as a businesswoman came not on a field of dreams but in an arena of faith. A lifelong Catholic, Mrs. Gibson was honored to provide equipment to help the television industry cover the 2002 visit to Canada of Pope John Paul II.

Mrs. Gibson, who graduated from James Wood High School in Winchester, attended St. Ann's Catholic Church in Ashland. She also attended Afton United Methodist Church when she was in Ophelia, where she loved spending summers on the Chesapeake Bay and had planned to retire.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include her husband, Richard "Rick" Gibson; a son, Thomas Berkley "Berk" Ellis Jr. of Hanover County; her mother, Betty Fries; and a sister, Catherine Smoot, both of Bunker Hill, W.Va.; three brothers, Joseph Fries of Clearbrook and John Fries and Robert Fries, both of Bunker Hill; and four grandchildren.