Mary Gibbons

Obituary For Mary Gibbons

Mary Gibbons Aug. 28, 1932-April 25, 2023 Mary Gibbons was a leader and a people person. She was generous. She was an achiever and she was whip smart. But of all the kind things you can say about Mary, this is the most apt: She was engaged with life. Mary was not passive, shy or retiring. She did not sit it out; she danced. If you had a problem, it became Mary’s problem and she would offer help and advice – whether you asked for it or not. Once, while driving home from work, she saw two kids fighting on a street with a crowd gathered around, egging on the fighters. She stopped her car, got out and ordered them to stop fighting and go home. Most likely stunned that a 5’2” woman would intervene in a gang fight, they obeyed. If a loved one needed financial help and she had money, it was theirs. If you needed a connection (and she always thought you did), she had plenty. Mary had an amazing number of friends. She was a long-time member of Girlfriends, the Delta Theta Sigma sorority and any number of informal social groups. Mary faced barriers, especially in her early life, and it would have been understandable if she had used those barriers as an excuse to underachieve. But she went around barriers and she certainly did not internalize them, even unfair ones. Growing up in New Orleans in the 1930s, Mary suffered indignities such as drinking from “colored” water fountains, sitting in the “colored” section on the side of the movie theater with its bad sight lines, or walking past empty seats to sit in the back of the bus. Asked how she felt about all of that, Mary said, “It didn’t really bother me. It was all we knew.” The daughter of Chester and Blanche Beaudoin, a postal service worker and a teacher – neither of whom had more than a high school education – Mary was hardly to the manor born. But her destiny to achieve was set when she was a preschooler. A cousin who was studying to be a teacher at Howard University decided to use Mary as practice. By the time she entered kindergarten, she could already read and write. She was heads and shoulders above other kindergarteners – at least at the all-black school she was forced to attend. That was a problem that needed to be solved. The first day of kindergarten, the teacher told Mary’s parents that she was too advanced for kindergarten and needed to move to first grade. The first-grade teacher told her parents that she was too advanced even for first grade. Then the second-grade teacher wanted to move her up to third grade before her parents said, “enough!” Chester and Blanche knew that Mary had more potential than the segregated schools in New Orleans could develop so they moved to New York City for her to attend high school. Mary graduated from high school at 16 and went on to Hunter College, where she majored in psychology. She got married at age 21, right out of college, to Louis Holly – the father of her two children, Louis and Daniel. Mary intended to be a school psychologist but, after she had graduated, the New York City school board added a requirement that school psychologists have an internship. She had not met that requirement and, since an internship would have required her to quit her job and she could not afford to do that, she switched fields, becoming a teacher instead. Mary went on to a 30-year career in education. She was a teacher for about 10 years, then rose to assistant principal and then principal. Mary served as principal of P.S. 80 Elementary School (now the Thurgood Marshall Magnet School) in Queens, N.Y., for about 10 years. The oldest of four siblings, Mary had natural leadership abilities that education administration brought out. She was an innovative administrator and was responsible for a number of new programs at P.S. 80. For instance, she got the community involved in the school – everything from tutoring to organizing Saturday basketball games. She started a computer instruction program when the industry was in its infancy. She retired from education at age 55 but that was just the beginning of a new chapter – in fact, it wasn’t much of a retirement. Among the endeavors Mary got involved with after leaving P.S. 80 were instructing in the teacher development program at St. John’s University and teaching English to immigrants. But, mostly, Mary used her retirement to travel, always with her third husband, Ken – whom she referred to as her true love. She and Ken were married for 29 years until his death in 2006. Ken and Mary travelled every year to their beloved Barbados, where they had a time share. Photos from their many trips to Barbados show how much of a people person Mary was. In almost every picture, she is in a crowd – laughing, eating, dancing or just lounging on the beach. Mary and Ken were among Barbados’ most ardent advocates and eventually brought just about all of their friends and family to visit. They travelled to a number of other places as well, including Spain, France, Italy, Israel and Africa. And that’s not counting the cruises. They attended the fabulous balls hosted by the Comus Club every year. In the co-op where they lived in Brooklyn, Mary and Ken were constant and consummate hosts to friends, family and neighbors. That co-op, with its balcony offering a breath-taking view of the Manhattan skyline, was a favorite place to visit for her children and grandchildren. After Ken’s death, Mary moved to Staten Island, then to New Jersey, then to North Carolina. In all of those places, she lived with her granddaughter Cassandra. In 2020, Mary came to live with Dan and his wife Judy in Raleigh, North Carolina. She lived there for a couple of years but, by then, her health had begun to decline and she could not easily climb stairs. Dan and Judy had a house built in Durham, N.C., where everything was on one floor. Mary spent the last year of her life in that house. She enjoyed watching her beloved game shows on TV, reading a book or doing puzzles out on the patio or down by the nearby lake, or just sitting around the dinner table telling and retelling stories from her life – occasionally coming out with a fascinating new tale that she had never told. She lived a full life and there was just so much to tell. She told stories about the bad times as well. In those times, she took comfort in her favorite Bible verse, from John 15: I am the true vine and my father is the gardener…Remain in me and I will remain in you. Up until the end, Mary tried to remain in the vine. Mary Gibbons was survived by her sons Louis and Daniel; daughter-in-law Judith; granddaughters Cassandra, Ariana and Alexis; great grandchildren Markos and Jacqueline; stepdaughter-in-law Marilyn; and stepgrandchikdren Lisa Ward, Leslie Ward, Jon Kimbrough and Channing Kimbrough Akinrinade.

All acts of kindness are appreciated during this difficult time.