Hutton Gibson - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Hutton "Red" Gibson is the son of businessman John Hutton Gibson and Australian opera singer Eva Mylott. Gibson's place of birth has been reported as either Montclair, New Jersey or Peekskill, New York. He was raised in Chicago, Illinois. Gibson's mother died when he was two years old and his father died when he was fifteen. Gibson supported his younger brother, Alexis, who died in his early twenties. Gibson graduated from high school early, at age 15, and ranked third in his class.

According to Wensley Clarkson's biography of Mel Gibson, Gibson studied for the priesthood in a Chicago seminary of the Society of the Divine Word but left disgusted with the modernist theological doctrines taught there. However, in 2003 Gibson stated that his actual reason for leaving was because he did not want to be sent to New Guinea or the Philippines as a missionary. Instead, he found work with Western Union and with the Civilian Conservation Corps. He also contributed to and edited the newsletter "The Pointer" while he worked in Wisconsin for the CCC from 1938–1939.

Gibson served as a first lieutenant in the Pacific Theater during World War II after his September 30, 1941, graduation from the U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS program at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He was wounded by Japanese fire in action at the Battle of Guadalcanal and sent to a nursing home in 1944.

Gibson married Irish-born Anne Reilly on May 1, 1944, at the Catholic parish church of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Brooklyn, New York. They had ten children and adopted another one after their arrival in Australia. As of 2003, Gibson had 48 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. His wife died in December 1990 and in January 2002 he married Teddy Joy Hicks. Since early 2006, he resides in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh after moving from Australia to Houston, Texas in 1999, and to Summersville, West Virginia in 2003.