Gilbert (Charlie) is born in Boston.

The son of Russian immigrants, Charlie Gilbert grows up on St. Cyprian’s Place, graduates from Roxbury Memorial High School, attends New York University, but is forced to leave school and return to Boston when his mother becomes ill. He becomes a painter and paper hanger, serves in the U.S. Navy in World War II, becomes a sheet metal worker, then works for the MBTA. A lifelong baseball fan, first of the Braves and then the Red Sox, Gilbert throws out the first pitch before a Red Sox game on his 100th birthday – which is also the hundredth anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park. He dies in Brockton on August 3, 2013.