Muriel Rae Cibull was one of only a handful of women studying to be psychiatrists when she was at the University of Colorado in the 1950s.
Cibull, who practiced in Denver until 2001, died Dec. 27 after a long battle with emphysema. She was 77. A service will be scheduled later.
Cibull was attracted to psychiatry because “she was always curious why people did what they did,” said her son, Stewart Winograd of Omaha.
Cibull made “close and lifelong friends,” said Barbara Mimmick of Foxfield. “She was a very caring person.”
“Neither of us had a sister, so we decided we needed to be sisters,” said Margaret Little of Duncanville, Texas.
They would sometimes give unsolicited advice to each other, she said, and when Cibull did just that, she’d add, “I know you’re not going to do a thing I tell you to,” said Little, laughing.
The two often traveled together, and one of their trips was to the British Isles.
Cibull “just couldn’t get it straight driving on the other side,” Little said. “I was about to have a nervous breakdown with her driving, so one day I asked her if my driving made her as nervous as hers made me.” Cibull said it didn’t.
“Good,” said Little. “Then you’re not driving anymore.” That was fine with Cibull, and the two laughed.
Their friendship started when Cibull and Little’s ex-husband were taking medical classes together.
In the past two years, while Cibull battled emphysema, Little called her every night at 7 p.m. “Every night now I think about her at 7 and I think about calling her. But I can’t,” Little said.
A devoted bridge player, Cibull played at every chance and “was always taking lessons,” Mimmick said.
Muriel Cibull was born May 3, 1930, in Evansville, Ind., and in 1935 moved with her family to Trinidad, where relatives had a shoe store. Her parents, Louis and Yetta Cibull, then opened a clothing store, The Fashion, which they operated for many years.
She graduated from high school in Trinidad and earned her medical degree at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1955.
She started as a child psychiatrist but switched to the treatment of adults “realizing they were equally in need of help,” her son said.
She married Emanuel Winograd in 1952, and they divorced in 1979. Stewart Winograd is her only survivor.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
