Max Shifrer

Max Shifrer has energized Humanists of Utah meetings with his friendly, outgoing personality for many years. Son of Slovenian parents, Max learned at an early age about religion and humanism.

Born into a strong Catholic family in Slovenia, Max's father served as an altar boy in the church, but became disillusioned as he learned that the church "took from the poor and gave to the rich." In those days, the economic climate of Slovenia was primarily controlled by the church, the government, and the wealthy. Frustrated and dissatisfied by a despotic governing system, Max's father emmigrated to America, just before World War I.

Max's father sent money to transport a wife from his native country to America. Together only ten days in Carbon City, the young couple traveled to SLC to marry in the Catholic Church. In 1922, their first child was born, Max Shifrer.

As an infant, Max and his parents lived in a 24 square-foot army tent built of thin wood and canvas. To keep warm during winters in temperatures below freezing, baby Max slept between his parents. After a few years, they purchased a home in Carbonville where Max lived from age four or five until he graduated from Carbon High. In high school, among other accomplishments, Max played football, which later earned him a much deserved sports scholarship to attend Brigham Young University (BYU), where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physical education, recreation, and health. During his playing days at BYU, Max participated in a 1942 game where BYU garnered its first win against the University of Utah--a momentous year in BYU football history.

During World War II, Max was a bombardier on B-24 bombers, a position about which he is particularly proud. Fortunately, Max never had to go to battle "in the trenches."

Max then resumed his education at BYU where, with his usual charm and charisma, he dazzled a woman by the name of Bonnie Hindmarsh. After a year of joyous courtship, they married and eventually had five children; three sons and two daughters.

Max's father left the Catholicism of his youth, becoming an avid atheist. In retrospect, Max believes his father, unbeknownst to him, was really a humanist at heart, as was his mother, who also left Catholicism.

Max thinks that for years he was a humanist and didn't know it. During the period when his wife was ill, it was recommended that she seek counseling from the Unitarian Universalist minister, an experience that led Max to be receptive to humanism some years later after his wife passed away. During this difficult period, Frank and Lorille Miller encouraged Max to attend humanist meetings where he, indeed, found comfort and camaraderie with like thinkers. Through humanism, Max discovered a belief system based on "the real world," the scientific method of proving phenomenon, the espousal of accepting all people, and the responsibility of humanity to seek its own destiny without supernaturalism.

Currently, Max is enthralled with the reforming politics of "democracy is winning, worldwide," meaning that countries spanning the world are learning through economic crisis that their military and religious governments are not working in today's high-tech global market

An active, astute, pleasant, articulate, bright, thinking, and reading individual, Max is a cherished member of the human and humanist family, a man well-respected and well-loved.

--Sarah Smith