BOSTON (AP) – Samuel J. Gerson, the former chairman and CEO of Filene’s Basement, the nation’s oldest off-price department store, died Saturday. He was 61.

Gerson, who led the retailer from 1984 to 2000 and steered it through bankruptcy, died at home, said his daughter, Dana Gerson Unger. He had been fighting brain cancer for a year, she said.

While Gerson also served as president of clothing retailer The Gap, it was Filene’s Basement, founded in his home town of Boston, that was his passion, his daughter said.

“It was his pride. He loved the place,” she said. “He loved the business, he loved the fact that it represented Boston.”

A native of the city’s Dorchester neighborhood, Gerson graduated from Boston College in 1963 and later earned an MBA from Boston University in 1968.

He served in the Navy from 1963 through 1966 aboard the USS Wasp.

Gerson worked for Federated Stores until joining The Denver of Denver as president and CEO in 1977, and then took over as president and chief operating officer of The Gap in 1979. He rejoined Federated in 1984 as president and CEO of Filene’s Basement.

The store, founded in the basement of Filene’s department store in downtown Boston, is known for its bargain prices and its annual bridal gown sale, in which brides-to-be make a mad dash for marked-down dresses.

The store began branching out across the Northeast in the late 1970s, and then continued to spread, eventually reaching Florida and totaling 51 stores.

But the company ran into tough competition and hard times in the 1990s. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August, 1999, closing stores and laying off employees before it was purchased by Ohio-based Value City Department Stores in February of 2000.

Later, he served as chairman of the board of GenuOne, of which his son in law, Jeffery Unger, is CEO and president.

In a recent column in the Boston Herald, Gerson, acknowledging he didn’t have much time to live, said he was at peace. “I’m 61 and I had a good life,” he said. “So what more could I ask? That I live to 71? Sure, I’d take that in a second,” he said.

“But when you get sick like I am, you start thinking about things that are good; I find it puts me at peace with myself.”

“I’m not even mad at God. Why should I be?” he continued. “Sure, this was His decision, but it was also His decision to keep me alive these past 10 months so that I could get my family settled, my affairs in order, and see my grandchildren. Know what I think that makes me? It makes me a very lucky guy.”

Gerson is survived by wife, Geri; three daughters; two grandchildren; his mother and a sister.

A funeral service has been scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m. at Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Chestnut Hill.

AP-ES-07-13-03 0237EDT