GIBAS FAMILY:

Andrew Gibas was born in September 1913, and Grace Braden Gibas was born in August 1916. The couple was married June 11, 1939 in Chicago and spent the early years of their marriage there. In early 1944, Andrew, registered as a conscientious objector, was drafted into the Civilian Public Service Camp at Wellston, Michigan. The family moved to Minneapolis when Andrew took a chemistry position with the experiment on starvation being conducted at the University of Minnesota. After his release from the Civilian Public Service, Andrew took a job as chemist for Grace-Lee Products and later for LaMaur, where he became head of research. He retired in 1972.

The Gibases were early experimenters in cooperative living, sharing households with two other families during the early 1940s in Chicago. In 1948, the family moved twelve miles from Minneapolis to the experimental cooperative community of Circle Pines, located in Anoka county. Andrew became a civic leader, serving as the first village clerk (1950-1954) and at age 84 was elected to the village council. He served as chairman of the Circle Pines Utilities Commission for 26 years. In 1951 he and Grace started the village newspaper, the Circulating Pines, which they published until 1994, when it folded for lack of a buyer.

The couple had four children, Murray (born 1942), Allen (born 1945), Barbara (born 1946), and Rebecca (born 1948). Murray was killed by a falling tree in Idaho in 1982.

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The collection includes information on the Civilian Public Service during World War II, conscientious objectors, and the Minnesota conscientious objector semi-starvation experiment, as well as newspaper publishing (the Gibases published the Circle Pines local newspaper, the Circulating Pines). A complete series of annual Christmas letters sent by the Gibases outlines major activities and events in the life of the family from 1939 to 1997. Allen H. Gibas' legal files pertaining to the People's Warehouse and to the East-West Bank Tenants Union are also available.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here] Gibas Family Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession number: 15,521; 16,020

Processing Information:

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Processed by: Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov, October 1999; Shelby Edwards, October 2011

Catalog ID number: 990017358570104294

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Additional information about Grace Gibas's role in the peace movement is available in Minnesota Women in the Peace Movement, 1945-1960: A Study of Gender and Peace Activism in a Conservative Era, by Jinx Schultz, which is separately cataloged in the Minnesota Historical Society book collection.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Conscientious objectors.

Starvation -- Experiments.

Pacifism.

Quakers -- Minnesota.

Newspaper publishing -- Minnesota -- Circle Pines.

Persons:

Gibas, Allen H.

Gibas, Andrew.

Gibas, Grace Braden.

Organizations:

Civilian Public Service.

East-West Bank Tenants Union (Minneapolis, Minn.).

Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

People's Warehouse.

Places:

Circle Pines (Minn.) -- Politics and government.

Circle Pines (Minn.) -- Newspapers.

Document Types:

Photographs.

Titles:

Circulating pines.

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