Some say the most remarkable thing about Hugh Gibson is that he performed his first violin concert at age 10 for World War I soldiers.
Others say he is unique because he played for the movie theaters in the days before talkies. Still others comment that he is unusual because he gave a concert last year, at age 90.
Longtime friend Lois Coxworth of Flossmoor says all of this makes him exceptional — his music, his history, the fact that he is open to new experiences.
To Park Forest resident Gibson, who will soon turn 91, music is his voice. “I don’t have a singing voice. I sing through my violin,” Gibson says.
He first became fascinated with the instrument during summer visits from his home in Des Moines to his grandparents in Green Mountain, Iowa, population 100. His aunt played the piano and his uncle the trombone, while other people played the clarinet, flute and bass viol. For Gibson, however, the most exciting part was watching a man who played a Sears Roebuck violin.
Back home, Gibson was inspired to enroll in a violin class with 30 children, beginning on a half-size, $12 violin. At the end of a month, he was the only one left in the class. He attributes the exodus to the difficulty in holding and playing the violin, adding, “I was ready to leave too.” His mother, a piano teacher, offered rewards for him to continue.
“She took the clock out of my room so I couldn’t time myself playing,” he recalls.
After two years, his mother took him to a new teacher, Emilie Ritchie, who had come to Des Moines from New York and with whom he studied for most of his student days. His earliest memory of playing the violin was during World War I, when as a 10-year-old he performed for soldiers in a music hall two miles from Ft. Des Moines.
Gibson’s violins increased in size from a one-half-scale instrument up to three-quarter, then seven-eighths and finally, at age 14, to a full-size violin.
At 15 or 16, he joined the musicians union. The age requirement was 18, “but I sneaked in,” he says with a grin. “They needed the dues in the Des Moines Musicians Union.”
His first job then was in public dance halls. He also played in the movie theaters, cued by a conductor at various times during the movie, as well as in Lake Geneva, Wis.
He met his future wife at a church function in Des Moines. “I was going with another girl, who enticed me to go to her church,” Gibson remembers. In the gym he spotted “this girl with gorgeous legs,” Bernice Huddleston, who lived a mile from the church. He walked home with her and with the boy who had accompanied her to the church. The three of them sat on the porch, Gibson next to Bernice on the swing and the other young man on the banister.
“We tried to outstay each other,” Gibson recalls.
Finally, Gibson suggested leaving. The other boy also rose to leave, but Bernice grabbed Gibson’s wrist and he stayed. They married in 1929.
When the Depression came, music was low on the list of things people needed, and Gibson decided to try something different. Bernice had studied shorthand in high school, so Gibson borrowed her book to learn it and later started taking a course in typing.
“I stole the book from the class and never went back,” he confesses.
Instead, he started a job as chief clerk with the Great Northern Railway and moved to Minneapolis, being promoted five times from 1940 to 1953.
During World War II, Gibson worked in troop train service, watching servicemen going out and coming back, some returning without arms or legs.
“I feel this time influenced my music, as does anything that (affects) your life,” Gibson says.
After the war, he transferred to the railroad’s Chicago office and moved to Park Forest. The Gibsons had three children: Carol, of Park Forest; Judy, of Schaumburg; and Hugh Jr., of Warner-Robbins, Ga.
“Because of him, I got started playing music at a young age,” says Carol, who would accompany him on the piano. “Although I don’t play as much as he (does), he taught me to appreciate music.”
In 1954 he and other musicians started the Park Forest Symphony, a group that evolved in 1983 into the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.
“We started in the Rich East High School music room,” he says. “When we got kicked out of there, we went to another place.”
In 1971, Gibson retired and he and Bernice moved to Arkansas, where the scenery was beautiful, he says, and his music thrived.
“I found a fine accompanist, had my own music room in the basement, and we made concert tours under the auspices of the fine arts association,” he explains.
When Bernice became ill, they returned to Park Forest. Since his wife’s death in 1995, Gibson has played at the Faith United Protestant Church in Park Forest and at nursing homes in the area.
“He’s taken a lot of comfort from his playing,” Coxworth said. “He’s met a lot of people, and it’s kept him socially active.”
For his birthday last year, the local Rotary put together a concert that gave Gibson an opportunity to play his favorite music and celebrate his life. Bo Lawrence, 74, of Park Forest, says club members had wondered what they could give Gibson for his 90th birthday.
“He wouldn’t want us to waste money on something that wasn’t enduring,” Lawrence says. “I suggested the best present we could give a musician was an audience. He was just delighted.”
Gibson still practices his violin every day. If it becomes a chore, he stops.
“I found that in working on difficult passages I would finally give up, let it go for a few days, and then I could pick it up and play it without any problem,” he says of his practice technique.
He recalls that noted violinist Fritz Kreisler would put his instrument away after concert tours and retire to a villa in Italy for the summer.
“Time has a refreshing effect,” Gibson says.
He smiles while explaining his long life. “I’ve never felt old,” he says. “I enjoy life. And I do think music has contributed to my longevity.”
Says Coxworth: “I’d love to have known him years ago. He was quite a dynamo, leading a band in the ’20s in a bow tie, being the hit of Lake Geneva.”
