Saltus Summer Magazine 2013 Page 33

clothing emporium, and gradually grew into a
thriving chain of retail companies, including former
Reid Street hallmarks, the Medical Hall pharmacy
and The Woman's Shop (housed in the current
headquarters of Edmund Gibbons Limited and
Gibbons Company department store). Like their
father, Graham and his brother John David--who
served as Bermuda's Premier from 197782--were
shrewd businessmen who expanded the Gibbons
business interests into a multi-national enterprise
encompassing real estate, banking, insurance and
retail. They also played key roles in public service
throughout the second half of the 20th century.
Graham was active in the Bermuda Chamber of
Commerce in the late 1940s, and joined the
Corporation of Hamilton in 1949, rising through
the ranks from city councillor to mayor, a position
he held for 16 years, from 197288.

"It helps everyone--if it's important to us, it's

important to everybody," he says of the family's
deep-rooted dedication to public service and
philanthropy. He was awarded a Commander of
the British Empire (CBE) in 1985 by the Queen
for civic duties and service to the community.

Graham met his wife on a blind date set up by

friends during one of his retail buying trips to New
York. Ida Gibson had been the Homecoming
Queen of Syracuse university in her junior year
and was working for fashion designer Nettie
Rosenstein in Manhattan. "She roomed with five
other girls in a two-storey building around 12th
Street and Sixth Avenue," he remembers. "I
knocked on the door--and my heart stopped."

The first-date venue had been recommended by

his friend John O'Sullivan, an FBI agent. "He said
if you want to impress your girlfriend, take her to
see [bandleader] Xavier Cugat and his orchestra at
the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. We got there and they
were doing the rumba. I didn't have a clue! But
luckily, Ida overcame that and the rest is history."

Graham asked her father if he could marry Ida,

and she came to Bermuda for six months "for a trial
period--to see if she'd like it or not!" The couple
tied the knot in 1949 in New Jersey and were
married for 39 years, before Ida died in 1988. They
had two children, Tracy Gibbons and Dr. Grant
Gibbons (1966), currently Minister for Economic
Development who has also played an active role in
Gibbons Group companies.

These days, Graham still dons his impeccable

suits most mornings a week and is driven to his
office at Edmund Gibbons Ltd., located in an
anachronisticly post-war space atop Gibbons
Company. He has a cup of tea, reads the daily
newspaper and greets staff, some of whom he has
known for many decades. "We have a great bunch
of employees, and I enjoy going in there," he says.
"It's familiar and it's comfortable."

--Rosemary Jones

S A L T U S M A G A Z I N E

3 3

Graham Gibbons helped shape a Hamilton-based retail empire

`[Public

service]
helps
everyone;
if it's
important
to us, it's
important
to every-
body'

As Deputy Mayor of Hamilton in 1965, with wife Ida