Charles Gibert Thebaud

Charles Gibert Thébaud, 88, most recently of Needham, Massachusetts, died peacefully in his sleep on October 24, 2025. He was born on 30 January 1937 in White Plains, New York, to Alice Beatrice (Tainter) Thébaud and Reynal de St. Michel Thébaud, Sr. He was married for more than fifty years to his beloved wife Sharon (Hall) Thébaud who predeceased him.

Charlie graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1955 and Yale University in 1959. Upon graduation, he was commissioned in the U.S. Army where he served as an officer working primarily in military intelligence, ultimately retiring as a Lt. Colonel. He attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, studying Korean, and served several tours in Korea in the 1960s and 1970s before moving to Washington, D.C. where he worked at the Pentagon. While in Korea he also taught English at a local school, he maintained connections with several of his students into his last years.

He is survived by his two children, Charlotte Hemr and her husband Kurt of Boston, Massachusetts, and Paul Thébaud and his wife Darlene of Norwood, Massachusetts; his four grandchildren, Louisa Hemr, Joseph Hemr, Jacqueline Thébaud, and Victoria Thébaud; and many extended family members and friends. He was predeceased by, in addition to his wife, his brother Reynal de St. Michel Thébaud, Jr.

Throughout his life Charlie loved to sail and to introduce people to the sport. He grew up learning to sail at the American Yacht Club in Rye, New York, and was a longtime member of the Nantucket Yacht Club where he was active racing in the Rhodes 19 class and taught his children to sail. In the 1960s and early 1970s he taught many of his colleagues to sail on San Francisco Bay on his beloved Rhodes 33, Arirang.

Charlie loved Nantucket, maintaining a family tradition of visiting the island regularly and spending summers there. He lived full time on the island in his early retirement before moving to Cummaquid where he and his wife enjoyed watching their grandchildren grow up.

A private funeral mass will be celebrated with burial following at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, Massachusetts. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Cape and Islands District or to a charity of your choice.