Liebler Overview

Father Harold Baxter Liebler
Biography (November 12, 1959)

Born in Brooklyn, New York on November 26, 1889; family moved to New York City some years later and about 1903 to Connecticut. Attended Adelphi Academy, Horace Mann Elementary and High Schools, Columbia College B.A. in 1911, Nashotah House (Theological School) Wisconsin graduated in 1914, B.D. in 1915. Ordained deacon February 24, 1914 and priest October 4, 1914.

First assignment was rectorship of St. Matthias’ Church, Waukesha, Wisconsin. Returning to the East he served as curate in St. Luke’s Chapel of Trinity Parish, New York for slightly over a year. In 1918 he became Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Riverside, Connecticut (where he had been reared as a child) with the responsibility of starting a mission in nearby Sound Beach, later known as Greenwich. In 1925 he became priest in charge, and later Rector, of the Old Greenwich parish, St. Savior’s which he continued to serve for a total of 25 years.

A boyhood interest in American Indians developed into what was first a purely academic interest along more scientific lines, and after a vacation trip through the Southwest there began to dawn upon him a sense of vocation to Indian Work. A number of such vacation expeditions searching for a tribe or group as yet untouched by any missionary activity ended in 1942 when, with packburro and pony he surveyed the Navajo Reservation in southern Utah. Here he found what has been called the most primitive American Indian extant. At the time the area was without Church, medical facility or school. Appealing to the Bishop of the Missionary District of Utah for permission to establish a volunteer mission at or near Bluff, Utah, which should be staffed by unpaid volunteers and supported independently, he received the blessing of Dr. Moulton. In 1943, with five helpers living camp style in tents, he laid the foundations of the Mission to be known as St. Christopher’s.

In the 3,000-square mile area assigned to the Mission there are now three churches, a school and a well-equipped clinic (4 adult and 8 children’s beds). Services are held also in school houses, in tribal chapter houses and in the mud and log homes of the natives. The need is great for additional workers—nurses, priests, devoted churchmen and women with almost any sort of talent—and of regular financial support to maintain and expand the work to meet ever growing needs.

Addendum
September 26, 2002

Father worked as the vicar at St. Christopher’s until his retirement in the mid-1960s. Liebler’s mission to the Navaho Indians, however, did not end upon his retirement. Instead, he moved into the Monument Valley area of Arizona and established the Hat Rock Valley Retreat center and St. Mary’s of the Moonlight chapel. After Father Liebler’s first wife, Frances, passed away in 1977, Father Liebler married Joan Eskell in October 1978. He resided in Monument Valley until his death in 1982. Even though operating this new religious site, Liebler was still intricately involved at St. Christopher’s. He was asked to fill both short term and long term vacancies on many occasions after his so-called retirement.

Photographs