Written by Kimball Worcester
This article was originally published in an Issue of Coronado Magazine. To read this article and more from Coronado Magazine, click the button below.
Tippy Thibodeau (née Linda Gary) arrived in Coronado from the East Coast on January 1, 1971, with four young children in tow and expecting another, who was born three months later. The idea was a one-year stay in Coronado while her husband, Navy dentist Dick Thibodeau, went to Vietnam. Fifty-four years later, Tippy still lives in Coronado.
Their first house was at 721 Coronado Ave., which they had to vacate after their first year on the island, during which the fifth and final Thibodeau child was born. With the help of neighbors and new friends, with Dick still in Vietnam, there was a bucket brigade of Thibodeau children and their belongings moving down the street to 901 Coronado Ave., which remains the Thibodeau home today. One of those great neighbors was the Smith family on Coronado Ave., who are still their great friends. Nori Smith helped manage all the children, hers and Tippy’s, on moving day.
Tippy was born in Raleigh, NC, in September 1939. Her family owned a beverage bottling company and had recently developed a new grape soda, whose slogan was “Take a tip, drink a Tip.” The hospital nurses called her the “Tip baby,” and thus she was known as Tippy ever since. Tippy recalls the war years: “As many businesses were affected during the war, because of the rationing of the sugar and the gasoline for the delivery trucks, they closed the business. They kept the patent, but they closed all the plants, and the sons went into the military, and my grandfather started another business.” Her father, Fred (always called Fred by his children and grandchildren), volunteered for the Navy in 1942. She thought he was a fireman because he was wearing a uniform. The family spent the war in Alexandria, VA, a time that Tippy remembers fondly. “Washington has always been my favorite city. I love all the architecture and the museums. On a Saturday, my father might say, ‘Well, let’s go to the Capitol and walk around a little bit.’ Like you would here go to Balboa Park. And I remember seeing senators riding in that tram with vice presidents sitting next to me. I saw Harry Truman walking up and down the street with a few Secret Service people. It was just so different than it is now.”
By 1952, the family was in Guam for several years. Then Fred was posted to Philadelphia, where Tippy graduated from high school. Next stop was North Island, and Tippy entered the San Diego College for Women (now the University of San Diego). During her senior year, her parents were posted to Yokohama, so Tippy and her spirited maternal grandmother (nicknamed “Wee”) rented an apartment together in San Diego, “one of the best years of my life, that year with her. She was the chaperone.”
Having graduated from college, Tippy joined her parents in Yokohama, where she met and married Navy dentist Dick Thibodeau in 1962. By the time the family arrived in Coronado in 1971, they had been posted in Pensacola and Bethesda. Tippy was a Vietnam Wife, raising five children in Coronado in the 1970s with the stalwart group of wives here who helped each other during demanding times, as Navy wives do. Two of her earliest Coronado community activities began at that time: the Above Average Book Club, as co-founder in 1972 and still active, and the Coronado Navy Swim Association as a board member in the 1970s. There was volunteer work and substitute teaching at her children’s school, Sacred Heart Parish School, as well as playing tennis with her lady friends at the Hotel Del courts. Tippy’s subsequent significant contributions to the community include, among others, the American Cancer Society, Coronado, and its “Daffodil Days” fundraiser; the July 4th Parade Committee; the Children’s Home Society, Coronado; the Sand Dollar$ Investment Club, founding member in 2000 and still active; and the Soroptimist International of Coronado since 1990. Tippy was Soroptimist of the Year, 2006. When asked about how her character developed, Tippy responds, “I am the oldest child, and I am the oldest daughter. When I grew up, I had a lot of responsibility with three siblings, younger siblings, a father who was not at home a lot during the war. And then even after the war, he traveled in the Navy a lot. So, I think I just had to kind of take charge of my life.”
Tippy is a gracious and witty individual, a vibrant intellectual who believes in making hay while the sun shines. Her family rallies around her daily and has been her rock since the death of Dick in 2023. Tippy is thought of with fondness and gratitude by those who were friends of her teenage children in the 1980s as a warm and understanding parent who welcomed everyone regardless of the shenanigans going on around her. All who know her could not think of a better Coronado Island Icon than the beloved Tippy Thibodeau.
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