Maurer, Oscar Edward D.D.

OSCAR EDWARD MAURER, D. D.

  Dr. Oscar Edward Maurer, an eminent divine who was pastor of Center church of New Haven, while in close touch with all ecclesiastical interests and a most earnest and consecrated worker for the development of his church, is one who has never lost the common touch and therefore has put forth effective activity not only for the uplift of the individual but also for the benefit of the community. Holding to the highest standards of citizenship, he has labored along those lines which recognize the needs of the foreign element for instruction in the ideals and standards of American citizenship. In a word he has passed beyond that stage at which the church for many years seems to have rested--the state in which the church instruction regarded largely the history of ancient races and their God, with comparatively little instruction concerning the fact that the same Deity presides over the destinies of our own country as well and has to do with its history and epoch making just as with the history of countries of the past. In a word Dr. Maurer is in touch with advanced thought and purposes and holds at all times to the highest ideals.

  He came to New England from the middle west, his birth having occurred in Garnavillo, Iowa, January 22, 1878. His father, Jacob D. Maurer, was also a native of that state and of German descent. The family emigrated to America as the result of participation in the German revolution and Jacob D. Maurer spent his life as a teacher in the public schools of Iowa, where he passed away in 1896, at the age of fifty-four years. He was largely instrumental in developing the public school system in his native state, his labors constituting an element of great value in that connection. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Laura E. Wirkler, is likewise a native of Iowa and of Swiss descent, her people having come to the new world in 1853. Mrs. Maurer still survives. She became the mother of four sons, of whom Dr. Oscar E. Maurer is the eldest. The others are: Rev. W. Irving Maurer, who was graduated from Beloit College in 1904 and from Yale in 1909 and is now pastor of the First Congregational church at Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Lloyd L. Maurer, who was graduated from Beloit in 1911 and from the Yale Medical College in 1916 and is now on duty as first lieutenant in the Medical Reserve, at Newport News, Virginia; and Keith L. Maurer, who was graduated from Amherst College in 1917 and is now mechanic’s mate in the naval reserve. A sister, Norma, died in her fourteenth year.

  Dr. Oscar E. Maurer was educated in the public schools of Iowa until his personal labor made it possible for him to pursue more advanced courses in college and university. While in high school he learned the printer’s trade and from 1893 until 1897 owned and published the Garnavillo Sentinel, a six-column quarto weekly newspaper, at which time he was the youngest member of the Iowa Press Association. He sold his paper in 1897 and for a year engaged in teaching in his native state before entering Beloit Academy, in which he spent one year as a student. He then matriculated in Beloit College and won his Bachelor of Arts degree upon graduation, magna cum laude, in 1903. While there he took deep interest in debating and oratory and was on the winning team of two intercollegiate debates and gained first place in the Interstate Oratorical Contest held at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1902, in which sixty-seven colleges were represented. In 1903 he entered Yale and received the Master of Arts degree from the Graduate School of Yale in 1906, while in the same year he won the Bachelor of Divinity degree upon completing a course in the Yale Divinity School. In 1912 Beloit College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. While in the seminary he assisted in establishing the Yale Divinity Quarterly, the first student magazine of the Yale Divinity School, and served on its editorial board for two years. He was licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association in 1904 and held the student pastorate in the Congregational church at Easton, Connecticut, for two years while in the seminary. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1906 and accepted the pastorate of the church at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1909, when he became pastor of Center church in New Haven, where he remained continuously from April, 1909, to December, 1917. He has been a trustee of Center Church Home for Aged Women and president of the Congregational Union of New Haven since 1910. He is also president of the Davenport Association, which conducts the Davenport church and settlement on Green street. He is a director of the Organized Charities Association, is a member of the executive committee of the American Missionary Association, is secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a director of the Congregational Board of Ministerial Relief and a trustee of Piedmont College--associations which indicate something of the nature and breadth of his interests. In addition he has found time for authorship and in 1915 published a volume entitled The Brotherhood of the Burning Heart. He is also the author of a number of articles on theological and literary subjects which have appeared in current magazines.

  On the 25th of July, 1905, Dr. Maurer was married to Miss Marion Elizabeth Spooner, a daughter of William Spooner, of Oak Park, Illinois, who, however, is a native of Litchfield county, Connecticut, and of Elizabeth (Brown) Spooner, a native of Dutchess county, New York. Mrs. Maurer is a graduate of Beloit College of the class of 1903. By this marriage there are three sons: William Spooner, born May 2, 1909; Oscar Edward, born January 22, 1911; and Eric Wirkler, born February 28, 1915.

  There is a military chapter in the life record of Dr. Maurer, who became a member of the Second Regiment of the Wisconsin National Guard, with which he served for two years in early manhood, while since 1910 he has been chaplain of the Second Company of the Governor’s Foot Guards of Connecticut with the rank of captain. In December, 1917, Mr. Maurer sailed for France, to enter on a year’s service with the army Young Men’s Christian Association, after having been in similar service for three months in Camp Meade, Maryland. He belongs to the Beta Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa, to the Beta Chapter of the Delta Sigma Rho and to the Phi Kappa Epsilon of Yale. He is also a member of the Association of Congregational Ministers, of the Graduates Club and of other organizations. His labors have been of far-reaching effect and benefit and have covered efforts for the union of the Davenport and Center churches, the adoption by the First church of a definite policy of work among the foreigners of New Haven, the democratization of the First church, the people’s forum, open-air preaching and mid-week services. He feels deep interest in social and labor problems and has frequently been invited to act as mediator in labor difficulties. He studies the great vital and significant questions of the age with deep earnestness and thoroughness and believes in the education of the masses, for which end he has instituted the people’s forum that all questions of general concern may be freely discussed. His Christianity is the basic element of all of his teaching; he has ever endeavored to instruct people in the ways of life that they might hold to higher standards in their relations with their fellowmen, in all business connections and in matters of citizenship, while recognizing that the guiding hand of destiny is the hand of omnipotent power.
 

(Photo attached)

Modern History of New Haven
and 
Eastern New Haven County

Illustrated

Volume II

New York – Chicago
The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company 
1918

pgs 650 - 654

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COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES
pages / text are copyrighted by
Elaine Kidd O'Leary &
Anne Taylor-Czaplewski
May 2002