One Man's Story: Arthur Edwin Gibb's Memories: A Review

This book is published by Keith W. Gibb who was a classmate of my wife, Marthanne, at Takoma Academy. Recently my wife and I attended the Alumni Celebration of 50 years since their graduation in 1969. Saturday evening Keith and his wife Laurie hosted as many of the 1969 graduates as were available at their home for supper and visiting. Keith told me about this book and I was delighted when he offered me a copy. I have now read the book and found it extremely interesting. Here are a few of the highlights.

 After Keith’s mother died, he was visiting with his dad, Arthur, when his dad suggested that someday hopefully in the far distant future, he may need a life sketch of his life and wondered if Keith would like to help him in this endeavor. Keith agreed and it eventually became this complete book.

Keith’s dad would tell his memories and Keith would transcribe them and next time they got together, Keith would read the last paragraph that had been written and his dad would continue the story.

So, that is how the book came about.

It is an extremely interesting story beginning when Arthur was born December 30, 1919 in Boone County, Missouri. Later the family moved to North Dakota and other places. Eventually of course Arthur grew up and became a minister. Arthur was offered a job as a beginning minister and one of the first jobs he had was to help with an evangelistic series of meetings.

The beginning minister was expected to lead the singing. Problem was, Arthur could not carry a tune. His wife Macie solved the problem by asking 6 or 8 of her relatives and friends to sit close to the front and sing loud enough so that people could not hear Arthur singing!

The solution worked so well that Arthur started getting requests to sing solos. He, of course, never took them up on this opportunity—and understandably so.

Later Arthur and family were invited to be missionaries overseas and spent ten years in the Philippines and 5 years in Singapore. There were many amazing experiences in the mission field.  When the Gibb family went to the Philippines in 1947 there were between 17,000 and 18,000 members of the Seventh-day Adventist church in the Philippines. In 2012 there were more than 750,000 members.

Arthur says, “I like to think that I had a part in this phenomenal growth”.

After his time in the overseas mission field, Arthur was invited to serve as Associate-Secretary of the General Conference in Takoma Park, Maryland. Among other responsibilities he helped to locate the needed missionaries to fill mission needs in overseas fields.

As of 2019, Arthur is healthy living in a assisted living facility in Maryland and regularly conducts a Bible study for other residences at the assisted living facility.

If you like good stories you should read this book. Contact Keith at  kgibb@bgf.org to request information on getting a copy.