Born 24 July 1915 to Theodore Thomas Gibson and Helen Mar Gibson (nee Kidd) in Pontiac, Michigan. Jim was educated at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology, in Houghton, Michigan. Jim received his degree in Electrical Engineering in 1938. He met the love of his life, Dorothy Evelyn Gregory (Dottie) while interning at the Houghton electric company. Following his graduation from Michigan Tech in 1938, he worked for the power company in Evansville, Indiana, until drafted into the US Army in March 1941.
After entering the military, Jim was trained as a medic and served as an enlisted soldier in that capacity for seven months as the US prepared for war. In November 1941, the Army was desperate for men with a background related to emerging technologies. Jim was given a direct commission as a Signal Corps officer and sent immediately after Pearl Harbor to England to learn from the British experience with radar. He spent most of 1942 working alongside British radar personnel and returned to the ‘States in November 1942 to impart his experience. Upon arriving back in the US, he immediately took leave to make a quick trip to Michigan to make Dottie his wife. Jim and Dottie spent the remainder of the war together in assignments in Florida and California. Jim finished the war as a radar officer in San Francisco, where their firstborn child, James Gregory, joined them in 1945.
After mustering out in 1946, Jim continued his education, earning an MBA from the University of Michigan. Jim and Dottie's second child, Mary Helen, was born in Ann Arbor in 1949. The family moved to California in 1950, when Jim was offered the opportunity for a better job with one of his war-time commanders who was then at the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City. After living in Los Angeles for a couple of years, Jim moved the family to Culver City in 1952 to be closer to work and because the schools were better.
Jim was always active in the community. Jim and Dottie hosted an exchange student from Norway, Tine Bonnevie, studying at Culver High in 1957. Jim and Dottie maintained a life-long connection with Time and her family. Jim served on the Culver City Board of Education from 1962-67, serving as the President of the Board from 1965.
After Jim retired from Hughes in 1984, he and Dottie spent the next twenty years travelling and enjoying their grandchildren. Jim served for many years as the family genealogist and secretary for the James Jones Family Association of the descendants of Jim's maternal 3rd great grandfather, James Jones of Macomb, Michigan. For many years he was a fixture at the family’s annual picnics in the Detroit area. Jim also derived much satisfaction from participation in the monthly meetings of the Men`s Breakfast Club at the Westwood United Methodist Church. Hosting of the meetings rotated among the members. Each month the host was challenged to provide a tasty repast and a presentation on some subject that would interest the membership. There was a certain amount of competition involved. Jim provided noteworthy accounts about a book he had read concerning the flooding of the Black Sea in ancient times, and the adventures of his son's family hiking across England along Hadrian’s Wall.
Jim lost Dottie in 2004, and suffered another devastating loss in 2015, when his beloved daughter, Mary, passed away suddenly. Since Mary's death, he was cared for by Dottie's niece, Jodi Spahr.
Jim was honored on his 100th birthday in 2015 by over 60 family members and friends.
Jim is survived by his son, James Gregory Gibson, four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years Dottie, his daughter Mary, and his oldest grandson Dean Michael.
There will be a memorial service at Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA at 11:00 am, Saturday 30 March 2019. The service will be followed by a reception. Jim will be interred alongside Dottie, Mary, and grandson Dean in the family plot in Davisburg Michigan on 6 July 2019.
In lieu of flowers, Jim requested donations be sent to the Dorothy Gibson Scholarship fund of the West Los Angeles College Foundation, 9000 Overland Ave, Culver City, 90230.
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