Quick Facts
Biography
Ernestine Moller Gilbreth, Mrs. Carey (April 5, 1908 – November 4, 2006) was an American author.
Life and career
Born in New York City, Ernestine Gilbreth was the daughter of Lillian Moller Gilbreth and Frank Bunker Gilbreth, early 20th-century pioneers of time and motion study and what would now be called organizational behavior. She grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, with 11 siblings.
Gilbreth Carey and one of her younger brothers, Frank Gilbreth, Jr., chronicled the upbringing of the 12 Gilbreth children in their successful, comic memoir Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), which was adapted as an eponymous 1950 film. The pair followed up with a successful sequel, Belles on Their Toes (1950), which was adapted as an eponymous 1952 film.
Ernestine graduated from Smith College and worked as a department store buyer and manager for 14 years. In 1930, she married Charles Everett ("Chick") Carey, Sr., with whom she had two children, Lillian Carey Barley (b. 1938) and Charles Everett Carey, Jr., (b. 1942).
She was the author of several other books, including Rings Around Us, an account of the events that happened from the night she met her future husband, "Chick" Carey, to the night the two watched their daughter dance the Charleston as a high school freshman. Carey resided in Reedley, California.
She died of natural causes in Fresno, California, aged 98, on November 4, 2006.