At 92, Bee's on Facebook! Her personal documentary

I got a call from Saratoga just before the holidays from Bee Gibbs' son Ben. The family, he said, were interested in a personal documentary of their mom Bee. Later, I spoke to daughter Paula in Brookline, Massachusetts, who told me, "I want my Mom to feel like a movie star!"

It was not long after, when I visited Bee at Heritage Pointe here in Orange County, that I first met this most remarkable woman.

From the information that son Ben had sent me, I already knew that Bee had been a Navy WAVE during the Second World War, and that during the war years she had traveled on her own across the country by rail to visit California. She also wanted to see the National Parks strung out along the way.
It was during that trip, that Bee first fell in love with California and especially California oranges. One of her most treasured photographs shows her posing among the orange groves in Anaheim (also holding a brace of avocados). But as I would later record in Bee's personal documentary, it would not be until some 60 years later that Bee would finally realize her dream of living here.

And that's something that I learned about Bee, that first morning in December 2010: age is no limit for Bee Gibbs.

Bee's college education was interrupted by the war and her marriage to Howard. Later, she resumed her studies and earned a bachelor's degree and then a master's degree. She used those qualifications to good effect. She became a teacher, then a librarian, and then she had her own television show where she was "The Book Lady".

Not bad for this first generation daughter of Russian immigrants.

So, having arrived in California with a lifetime of family, education, service and work behind her, Bee Gibbs might have been expected to take things a little easier. Play a little bingo maybe, soak up some sun.

Instead, Bee enrolled at Saddleback College and took more college courses - in art and computing. Bee Gibbs I discovered, is a life-long learner.

And she never forgot those California oranges that had so captivated her in 1945. In December 2010, as I worked on her personal documentary, Bee took me out to her balcony to see her very own orange tree - in a pot. And sure enough, there were her own oranges. (Although, I kind of got the feeling that they were more objects of admiration than future food!)

Happiness achieved? Nearly.

The only problem for Bee in her new digs now that she was finally here in her fabled southern California, was that her children were spread out across the nation; and two grandchildren live overseas and the other lives in Boston.

So Bee joined Facebook.

Facebook? But she's 92!

Well, as I found out making Bee's personal documentary, she has been a Facebook user for around 6 months and already has 28 friends, including all of her surviving children and some of her grandchildren.

On Facebook, Bee is subject to the same petty annoyances that bedevil us all, like invitations to be friends from people that, well, she really doesn't know all that well.

But all in all, Bee likes to spend time online. Because it keeps her connected to her family and because there are always new things to learn.

And as I conclude in Bee's personal documentary, Bee was born into one world and now lives in another. But at 92, she's still fully engaged and interested in this new one. She is still energized by all the creative possibilities it provides.

Bee Gibbs was a star before we met her. And she's still a star today.

And as well as being featured in her own personal documentary, Bee's story has made front page news here in Orange County. Is being the feature story in The Orange County Register too "old media" to impress our thoroughly modern Bee? Well, Bee has very wide tastes and is not above throwing a glance towards a broadsheet from time to time.

A remarkable woman indeed.


Jane Lehmann-Shafron is a video biographer who co-founded Your Story Here LLC Personal Documentary, a video production company that specializes in video biographies. Based in Orange County CA, her award-winning films have been featured in festivals in the United States and Canada. She can be contacted on 949-742-2755 or through her website.