The Reverend Dr. Max Gaebler—beloved pastor, community activist, and international advocate for liberal religion, whose snappy bow ties and cherubic smile made him instantly charming and recognizable—died on 7 September 2018, aged 97. His long-time friend and colleague, Rabbi Manfred Swarzensky, called Max “the most brilliant clergyman in Madison (WI).”
Max David Gaebler was born on 26 May 1921 in Watertown, Wisconsin, to Hans and Hele Gaebler, and grew up among German-American free thinkers. He earned an A.B. from Harvard College in 1941 and then an S.T.B. from Harvard Divinity School in 1944. Later he would receive two doctorates honoris causa—an S.T.D. from Starr King in 1968 and a D.D. from Meadville/Lombard in 1975.
Mr. Gaebler was ordained on 5 March 1944 by the First Parish in Cambridge, MA, and then served for a year as the American Unitarian Association’s Minister to Students in the Greater Boston Area. During that year, Carolyn Farr, then a graduate student at Harvard University, visited the First Parish in Cambridge and heard him preach. They were married in February, 1945.
After settlements at the First Parish Church United in Westford, MA (1945–48) and then the Unitarian Church of Davenport, IA (1948–52), the Rev’d Mr. Gaebler was called to the First Unitarian Society of Madison, WI, and 35 years later was named Minister Emeritus there on retirement in 1987.
His service to our national liberal religious movement was extensive and varied. Early on, Max served as president of the Unitarian Ministers’ Association and, in the late 1950s, as secretary for one of the joint interim committees leading to Unitarian and Universalist consolidation in 1961.
To the Rev’d Michael Schuler, his long-time successor in the Madison pulpit, Max was the ideal emeritus colleague, almost a co-minister, and “quite the gentleman…unfailingly courteous in speech and in his correspondence… He and I bonded very early over the Chicago White Sox.” Indeed, Max wrote an ode to Comiskey Park when it was torn down in 1991 for a new stadium.
At his death, Max was survived by five children (David, Mary, John, Ralph, Helen), a sister-in- law, three nephews, and his domestic partner Nancy Townsend and her family. His wife and a younger brother had died earlier.