There were many ways Russell Walter Gibbons could have come to the Fortean Society, but, from this distance, only one is apparent. Born 14 October 1931 in Hamburg, New York, the second son of Walter and Marion Gibbons, Russell was one of the youngest of those who belonged to the original Fortean Society—only seven months after his birth, Fort’s last book came out, and the man himself died. Russell attended area schools and graduated from Ohio Northern University, according to an obituary. He was an inheritor of Upstate New York and Upper Midwest progressive thought—one of the paths that might have brought him to the Fortean Society which, in Thayer’s hands, welcomed political discussion.
Gibbons worked as a journalist for a time, covering labor issues. A member of the United Steel Workers union since 1949—when he did summer work in the mills—he came to work for the union in its public relations division starting in 1965, moving to Pittsburgh. He married in 1957, Louise Samulski, and they had two children. Louise left him a widow, and he remarried in 1972, Charlotte Zirnger, with whom he also had two children. Eventually, he was editor of “Steelabor” and Director of Communications from 1978 to 1987. Gibbons was a Catholic, and wrote on social justice issue for Catholic publications. His father had been a chiropractor, and Gibbons edited “Chiropractic Age,” which documented chiropracty’s struggle for legitimacy—another path that might have led him to the Fortean Society, which embraced naturopaths and advocates of alternative medical ideas.
Gibbons worked as a journalist for a time, covering labor issues. A member of the United Steel Workers union since 1949—when he did summer work in the mills—he came to work for the union in its public relations division starting in 1965, moving to Pittsburgh. He married in 1957, Louise Samulski, and they had two children. Louise left him a widow, and he remarried in 1972, Charlotte Zirnger, with whom he also had two children. Eventually, he was editor of “Steelabor” and Director of Communications from 1978 to 1987. Gibbons was a Catholic, and wrote on social justice issue for Catholic publications. His father had been a chiropractor, and Gibbons edited “Chiropractic Age,” which documented chiropracty’s struggle for legitimacy—another path that might have led him to the Fortean Society, which embraced naturopaths and advocates of alternative medical ideas.