Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (1902 - 1958)

Born 15 Mar 1902 in New York City, New York

Ancestors

Husband of Elinor Mead Sherwin — married 14 Oct 1933 in Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut

Died 16 Aug 1958 at age 56 in New York

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Biography

Oliver was born in 1902. He passed away in 1958.

Gibbs was married three times. His first marriage was on July 24, 1926 to Helen Marguerite Galpin, the daughter of William Galpin (an English butler who worked for Mortimer Schiff).[2] His second wife was Elizabeth Ada Crawford, whom he married in August 1929, a Detroit native who worked as a writer in The New Yorker's promotion department.[2] Less than a year after their marriage, Elizabeth committed suicide by plunging to her death from the window of their apartment on the seventeenth floor of 45 Prospect Place in Tudor City, New York on March 31, 1930.[12]

After Elizabeth's death, he began a nearly three-year relationship with writer Nancy Hale, who was then married to Taylor Scott Hardin. Hale refused to leave Hardin for Gibbs (although she did eventually divorce Hardin and married Charles Wertenbaker and, later, Fredson Bowers).[2] He then met his third, and final, wife, whom he married in 1933; Elinor Mead Sherwin (1903–1963), daughter of architect Harold Sherwin of the Sherwin-Williams paint family.[13] Together, they were the parents of two children:[2]

Wolcott Gibbs Jr. (b. 1935),[14] known as "Tony," who married Elizabeth Villa in 1958.[15] He has written extensively about yachting and was an editor at The New Yorker for several years in the 1980s.[citation needed]

Janet Gibbs, who married James Ward.[13]

An alcoholic and heavy smoker, he died of a heart attack while reading proofs of his upcoming book, More in Sorrow, on August 16, 1958 at his home on Ocean Beach, Fire Island.[1] He was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. His widow died on July 30, 1963 of burns she received in a fire at her New York home, 352 East 50th Street.[13] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolcott_Gibbs

http://www.tudorcityconfidential.com/2017/02/confidential-sad-case-of-mrs-wolcott.html

Sources

• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KQSV-TML : 19 November 2019), Wolcatt Gibbs, Assembly District 12, Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 31-1002, sheet 4B, line 43, family 131, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 2648.
• "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q23B-ZNRB : 7 June 2016), Oliver Wolcott Gibbs, 1958; Burial, Hartsdale, Westchester, New York, United States of America, Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum; citing record ID 158161165, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.
• "United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPYR-2ZPT : 10 February 2020), Wolcott Gibbs, 1958.