Gibas, Grace Braden

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.