By Rich Pollack
GULF STREAM — Even after her retirement in 2004, Anne Gibb remained one of Gulf Stream School’s most beloved educators.
“Everyone adored her,” said Barbara Backer, whose now-grown children attended the school and who remained close to the former school leader. “She held us all to a standard even higher than what we envisioned for ourselves.”
Now the Gulf Stream School community is mourning the loss of the longtime teacher and administrator known to most simply as Miss Gibb, who died on Christmas Day. The former English teacher, who served as the head of school for 14 years, was 90 years old.
Described by those who knew her as firm but caring and exceptionally dedicated, Miss Gibb spent 32 years — and touched the lives of thousands of children and parents — at the school.
“She really shaped every kid who went through that school,” said Barbara Crocker, a former president of the board of trustees, whose three children attended the school during the Gibb years. “She made an indelible mark on who they are.”
A sixth- and eighth-grade English teacher who quoted Shakespeare and Dickens with ease, Miss Gibb is remembered mostly for her ability to bring out the best in people.
“She was an amazing woman who made you stand taller,” said Crocker, who worked closely with Miss Gibb while serving as a trustee. “When you went to see Miss Gibb, you were always on your best behavior, whether you were a student or a grandparent.”
Other parents recall Miss Gibb’s evident kindness — from her handwritten thank-you notes to the annual tea parties she held for first-graders.
Miss Gibb was a champion of respect for everyone and someone who made sure her young charges gave their all — in the classroom, on the athletic field or in the community.
“She held you to your very best behavior with a twinkle in her eye,” Backer said.
Originally from Scotland, Miss Gibb retained a bit of an accent as well as a touch of European propriety. Conversations were laced with words such as “laddie” and “lassie” and “wee.”
“She was a female Mr. Chips,” said Judy Wilson, who along with her husband, Ned, taught with Miss Gibb for many years. Both agreed that Miss Gibb was a natural when it came to teaching.
“She was one of the five best teachers I’ve come across,” Ned Wilson said. “She was a fabulous teacher as well as a dear friend.”
For former students like Casey Wilson — Ned and Judy’s son who is the school’s longtime director of development — Miss Gibb’s classroom was a place where children honed their respect for learning and for one another.
“You liked learning when you were in her classroom,” he said.
Wilson described Miss Gibb as the quintessential independent school headmistress whose kindness was unparalleled.
“She saw and cultivated the good in people,” he said.
Retired English teacher David Winans, in his book The Little School by the Sea, credited Miss Gibb’s leadership success as head of school to several factors, including her love of the school and of her job, her ability to listen well, her attention to detail and her strong work ethic.
“She always referred to Gulf Stream School as her family and home,” Winans said. “She often mentioned it at Founders Day when she gave headmistress remarks.”
Winans said that when he was first hired he was told to sit in on Miss Gibb’s class so he could see the way she taught. “She held the bar high and the kids responded to it,” he said.
Throughout her tenure as headmistress, Miss Gibb continued to have a presence in the classroom, sharing her love of literature and, of course, proper grammar.
“I think it’s important for heads of school to teach,” she told The Coastal Star in 2013.
Miss Gibb believed it was important that students did well both in the classroom and in life.
“I liked the children to have a good education but I also liked them to be ladies and gentlemen,” she said during a 2013 interview prior to the school’s 75th anniversary.
Underscoring that philosophy was a banner that hung in front of her classroom that said: “Kindness is spoken here.”
Following her retirement in 2004, Miss Gibb always felt part of the Gulf Stream School family.
“It gives one an enormous sense of pride and pleasure to be able to say you were associated with Gulf Stream School,” she said in 2004.
That Miss Gibb died on Christmas Day seemed fitting to some who knew her.
“I’m sure she would have picked one of the most blessed days of the year to go home,” said Melissa Pope Scott, a parent who later became pen pals with Miss Gibb, writing back and forth every six weeks or so. “If anyone could pull it off, she could.”
Gulf Stream School is planning a celebration of Miss Gibb, with Barbara Backer and Susie Ridgley coordinating the gathering. Backer says it will be much like the educator herself:
“It will be refined, beautiful, simple and very classy, but in no way pretentious.”
Comments