The career choice of Max Gass was almost predetermined at birth. As the only son of hard-working immigrants, Max was groomed to be a businessman. His father, Samuel Gass, had lived the classic rags to riches story, arriving penniless in the New World, and making a success of himself, first in the rag recycling business and then in shoe manufacturing. Max, however, did not find material success in the business world nor did it satisfy him intellectually or emotionally.

When Max was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1911, his father was still working in the rag business. The family lived in a ‘three-decker’ on Orange Street in Chelsea, above the apartment of his maternal grandparents. Max’s birth was followed over the next eleven years by the arrival of four sisters. In the early 1920s the family moved to a large house at 27 County Road in Chelsea, a veritable mansion compared to their former cramped quarters and a tangible symbol of Samuel’s success.

Early on, Max showed a strong aptitude for both scholarship and religion. His father hired Rabbi Bernard Dubrow, an immigrant melamed (teacher) to home tutor Max and his sisters in Hebrew.^[1] After these lessons ended Max did not receive additional formal religious training. Instead, through persistent and life-long study he became learned in Torah and Talmud and taught himself how to chant prayers as competently as a professional cantor.

In 1925, Max graduated from Chelsea High School. Beside his senior picture in the Beacon, the high school yearbook, is the quotation, He lived at peace with all mankind; in friendship he was true. He went on to Boston University where he majored in law, with a minor in economics and social science. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Laws in 1930, and his Master’s Degree in Laws degree in 1931.

In 1921, Samuel Gass had started Lion Shoe Company in Lynn, Massachusetts, with his brothers Morris and Nathan Gass, and his wife’s brother-in-law Abe Gootman. As a young man Max worked in the family business. After Lion Shoe closed in 1940, Max became the right-hand man of his father, assisting him with business matters pertaining to the family’s investments and real estate holdings. Samuel Gass helped Max begin a new business venture, the Liberty Wool Stock Company, in partnership with Max’s second cousin, Nathan Cutler, and brother-in-law, Jonas Ullian. The business was located on Second Avenue in Chelsea, and three of Max’s sister helped out. It is apparent from correspondence between Samuel and his offspring that Sam was calling the shots.

Click here to read Samuel Gass's correspondence.

Rabbi Baruch Korff, Max’s brother-in-law, described the relationship between Max and his father:

“Mattes was very devoted to his father, extremely devoted. I’ve never met a son more devoted. If you had told him to be in a harness and be the horse, he would be the horse.

“Max once said to me, ‘You know where you have honor thy father and thy mother? It’s the only commandment where the reward is given right there. Honor thy father and thy mother that your days may be long on earth. Of all the Ten Commandments, this is the only one in which you are given immediate reward.’

“He really was a believer that G-d will prolong his life if he honors his father and mother. And beyond that, he was genuinely fond of his father. The father had a severe case of arthritis, and would wear half gloves to cover up the warts and the hands. Mattes would look at those hands and say, ‘This is what saw me through college’.”

     
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