Early Life
Gibbs was born Frieda Lipschitz, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children of Russian Jewish descent. Her father died when she was six months old, and she and her three siblings spent the next seven years in a local Jewish orphanage.
Revealing a natural talent for singing at a young age, she was given the lead in the orphanage's yearly variety show. She reunited with her mother (who had visited her once every other month) when the latter found employment as a midwife. Her mother's job, however, often forced her to leave her daughter alone for weeks at a time with only a Philco radio for company.
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