BARBARA GIMBEL

1921 - 2024

GIMBEL--Barbara P. Barbara P. Gimbel--beloved family matriarch and friend to many--passed away peacefully in her New York City home at the age of 102, on February 22, 2024. Barbara Ann Poulson was born in Watertown, South Dakota in 1921. She and her older sister Betty were the children of Clair Poulson, a first-generation Norwegian immigrant, and Florence Evangeline Bacon. Barbara's grandfather, Miles Edward Bacon, was a Congregational minister from Stowe, VT, who was sent in 1862 by his church to preach the gospel in South Dakota. Evangeline, his fourth child (there were to be nine), was born in a covered wagon somewhere in Wisconsin on the trail. Like her grandfather, Barbara was imbued with pioneer spirit, independence, bravery, confidence, and optimism. She exuded charm and warmth, along with a great appreciation of--and appetite for-- life. Barbara's family suffered during the Depression. "We were poor, like most Americans," Barbara later said when explaining her aversion to peanut butter, due to her over-dependence on it during those lean years. She was admitted to the University of Colorado at age sixteen. There she met and married Willard Caton, who subsequently enlisted in the Air Force after Pearl Harbor. Alone, while her husband served in the war and in need of a job, she joined her mother and older sister in the booming naval port town of Long Beach, California. There she met Bruce A. Gimbel, then a transport pilot in the Army Air Corps. They married immediately after the end of World War II and moved back to his home city of New York. Bruce resumed his career at Gimbel Brothers, Inc., working his way through the ranks to become president in 1953 and later chairman of the Board. Bruce introduced her to his large family, his cosmopolitan social circle, and to his hobbies, golf and aviation. Barbara completed her BA and graduated Magna Cum Laude from The School of General Studies at Columbia University. She was a devoted, lifelong reader, and a particular admirer of Proust, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and George Eliot. She was deeply committed to improving the state of health care, both locally and nationally. She co-founded the children's unit of Bellevue Hospital and continued her long career of volunteer service to act for a term as President of the Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, serving on the board of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, and co-founding the HHC Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm to the city's public hospitals. She served for sixteen years as a member of the United Hospital Fund and was one of only two lay persons appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve a six-year term on the Advisory Committee of the National Cancer Institute. She was a key member of the Republican Family Committee, a Pro Choice PAC. "The Barbara P. Gimbel Neonatal Intensive Care Unit" at Bellevue Hospital was inaugurated in 2008. Barbara, when speaking of her work on the Bellevue Hospital Children's Unit's renovation, would quote a child patient who remarked to her, "now I can see the sky." She will be remembered as a someone who brought light to everyone, family and friends alike, and will be greatly missed. She is survived by the daughter of her first marriage, Judith Mendelsund (adopted at eighteen by Bruce A. Gimbel), the son of her second marriage, John B. Gimbel, her stepson Robert B. Gimbel, eight grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. There will be a memorial service held in May. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Barbara P. Gimbel Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, https://nychhc.network forgood.com