George Lehner Bibring of Lancaster and Provincetown died peacefully on Oct. 23, 2023, at Leominster Hospital. He was 94.
George was born in Vienna, Austria to Grete Lehner Bibring and Edward Bibring on Sept. 21, 1929. The family stayed in Vienna until Hitler’s army made living there untenable. They fled to London in late 1939.
When bombs began to fall during the Blitz, George and his brother Thomas were evacuated to a village outside London. George wondered whether he would ever see his parents again.
The family was reunited early in 1941 and embarked from Liverpool to Boston via Bermuda on the SS George.
A diary George kept described the events happening around him in stark terms. On Feb. 2, 1941, a storm left his mother and brother terribly seasick. He witnessed depth charges being fired at U-boats, sinking one. One entry simply said: “The convoy has left us.” The boat arrived safely in Boston.
The Bibrings settled in a house near Harvard Square across from what is now the Radcliffe Library, and George became a rebellious student. He met Marcia Gerould, who would become his wife. His future in-laws had a home in Provincetown, where he would spend as much time as possible for the rest of his life.
George was drafted into the Army and served from 1953 to 1955 at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He felt the same way about the Army as he did about school and authority in general: he hated it. When he completed his active duty, he enrolled at Northeastern University on the GI Bill.
He liked going to school and working on what he was studying in Northeastern’s co-op program. George graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and then worked for the General Services Administration, designing and inspecting HVAC systems for post offices throughout the Northeast. He retired at 57.
George and Marcia had two children, Margot and Lisa; the family settled in Lincoln. George was constantly tinkering with machines and working on projects around the house, often teaching his daughters about mechanical things.
He loved his cars, almost all of them Volkswagens. He also loved Provincetown, where he enjoyed his daily walks at Herring Cove, racing with the Provincetown Yacht Club where he served as Commodore for a time, fishing for flounder and striped bass with his father-in-law, and sitting in the sun, striving for the best tan in town. He enjoyed spending time with his daughters and granddaughters in Provincetown as well.
In 2019 George moved to a condo in Lancaster, which he loved almost as much as the house in Lincoln where he lived for 50 years and where he raised his family.
He is remembered for his sense of humor and ability to make friends when he was out and about. He would often say that he couldn’t believe he was 94, noting that he still thought of himself as that rebellious youth of yore.
George is survived by his daughters, Margot Hammer-Streeter and husband Frank of Lancaster and Lisa Bibring and husband Danny Flynn of Mendon; granddaughters Kelly Hammer of Provincetown and Lindsay Hammer of Chandler, Ariz., Becky Ostroski and husband Michael of Baltimore, Md., and Molly Broderick and husband Zach of Somerville; two step-grandchildren, Nathaniel Streeter of Berkeley, Calif. and Lillian Streeter of Somerville; and a great-grandson, Andrew Ostroski of Baltimore.
He was predeceased by his wife, Marcia.
A celebration of George’s life will be held in the spring of 2024 in Provincetown.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in George’s name to the Center for Coastal Studies, 5 Holway Ave., Provincetown 02057 or at coastalstudies.org.
