From Tiger Tails to Tiger Legacy: Beth Gilson ’82 Gives Back to Princeton

She was a little girl, back on campus for one of her dad’s many joyful Reunions weekends. Beth Gilson ’82 can picture it now in her mind’s eye: walking through Prospect Arch with her father and his class, she spotted a Princeton legend. “There was this really, really, really tall guy and Dad said, ‘That’s Jimmy Stewart.’”

Gilson will tell you that some of her “earliest and happiest memories” were formed on the Princeton campus, including P-rades and football games with her family. “Life could be hard,” she added, “but Princeton was this kind of safe, absolutely beautiful place for me.”

Princeton continues to play an important role in Gilson’s life. In gratitude, the sociology major recently established a charitable gift annuity (CGA). The idea was sparked years ago when she started helping her mother with her finances and discovered the annuities her mother received from a Princeton CGA. “It’s a win-win,” Gilson said. “I’ll get some income and at the same time, I make sure there’s a gift for Princeton to acknowledge what the place has meant to me.”

Her Princeton story begins with her father, Bill Gilson ’40, whom she describes as a “rah-rah gung-ho” Tiger football fan and history buff. Bill gave Beth and her one-year-older sister, Cindy, a strong sense of the legacy of the University, sharing his own wonder-filled experiences, like seeing Einstein walk around campus.

He made all things Princeton seem “magical,” Gilson said. “We’d frolic on the lawn of Elm Club, then walk to the stadium behind the marching band — this loosey-goosey ragtag band — and I was in awe. My dad would hold my hand and swing me. The only thing I wanted in the world was to be in the marching band.

“Everything was orange and black. There were always stuffed tigers in our house. My sister and I would wear orange and black shorts to Reunions. And the P-rades! You’re a little kid and you see these grown-ups wearing absurd costumes. We loved the ones where the men were wearing tiger tails. We’d run and try to pull them.”

Gilson said she grew up with loads of “uncles” and “aunts” whom she didn’t realize weren’t actual relatives until she was older. Most were her father’s Princeton classmates and the rest were Yalies, from her dad’s years at law school. On home game days for Princeton football, they’d all first gather at the Gilson house in Summit, New Jersey, enjoying cupcakes, half of each decorated with an orange “P,” the other half with a blue “Y.”

When Gilson was in high school, the family faced difficult times, and Princeton found a new place in her heart. Cindy developed bone cancer during her junior year of high school. When the cancer spread to her hip by the following autumn, Cindy chose to have her leg amputated all the way to the hip to fight the disease as much as she could. She’d been accepted to Middlebury College, but the school let her know they couldn’t accommodate the wheelchair she would need. “Very quietly, without saying anything to my sister, my dad submitted an application to Princeton for her,” Gilson said. “And they said yes, for which I will always be grateful.”

Sadly, Cindy lost her battle with cancer before she could enroll.

Soon after, Gilson left for Williams College. An athlete interested in basketball, softball and soccer, she opted for a small college, hoping to play sports at the varsity level. But Gilson struggled as her family reeled from the loss of Cindy. She dropped out of school and went home to take some time off.

Her childhood memories of Princeton brought comfort and inspiration. “I just desperately wanted that whole college experience,” she said. She applied to and was admitted to Princeton for her junior year. “I did everything I wanted to do at college,” she said. “I joined Elm Club, like my dad. I made friends and got engaged in social activities. I played clarinet in the marching band. Princeton was an extension of heart and home. It’s such a renowned institution, but for me, my experience was deeply personal and so family-connected.”

Gilson also pursued a new love of sociology. She recalled how Marvin Bressler, the chair of the department, was her independent work adviser and “his door was always open. We’d sit and talk. He taught the most amazing class I’ve ever taken in my entire life. The question we were trying to answer was ‘What is human nature?’ … A small class taught by a full professor, discussing human nature. My God, what could be better?”

After Princeton, Gilson worked as a paralegal in New York for a year at a finance-oriented law firm. There, she discovered another new love: not law, but finance. “What appealed to me,” she said, “was creating the deal. So I ended up going to business school.”

Gilson’s career took her from New York to Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore before she joined Deutsche Bank in the Philippines for 10 years as chief operating officer and chief financial officer. She returned to the U.S. about a decade ago and works in financial technology in the Bay Area.

Princeton, she said, has always been part of her estate planning. As her financial needs shifted, the idea of a CGA became attractive. Her mother had discovered the same thing and had been a trailblazer; she was the second-ever Princeton alumni widow to create a CGA at Princeton when that opportunity became available in the late 1990s.

“From a financial standpoint, a CGA is fantastic,” Gilson said, adding that the Princeton Gift Planning staff made the process incredibly easy.

Gilson has also volunteered to be the Planned Giving chair for her class and is looking forward to new and renewed Tiger connections. “It gives me a chance to reach out and talk to classmates,” she said.

After living abroad and on the West Coast, Gilson is hoping to spend more time on the East Coast in the years ahead. She plans to attend Reunions and, of course, don orange and black once again in the P-rade. Her childhood costumes are long gone, but her Princeton spirit shines bright. She may not pull a Tiger tail, but she’ll create new lasting memories and tales to tell.

—Catherine Mallette ’84

To learn more about whether a charitable gift annuity or charitable remainder trust might be right for you, please submit a Generations response form or contact us at 609.258.6318 or GiftPlanning@princeton.edu.