Lewis and Lois Gilbert Papers

Lewis Loder Gilbert, Jr. was born August 17, 1898, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the son of Lewis Lader Gilbert (1861-1940), a businessman, and Irene E. Morse (`869-1957). In 1920, he received the A.B. degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  During 1920-21 he worked as a graduate secretary for the YMCA at Bates College. Gilbert studied at the Yale Divinity School and received the B.D. degree in 1924. Also in 1924, he married Lois Aurora Chandler (1899-1969), a 1921 graduate of Bates College and the daughter of Albert Newton (1874-1926) and Martha A. Greeley Chandler (1874-1937). Lois had multiple siblings as well: Maris Josephine (1902-1915), Doris Greeley (1904-1980), Doric Preston (1904-1978), Eric Albert (1907-1988), and Tracy Clough (1913-1996). The couple remained in New Haven during 1924-25, while Lewis worked on the staff of Yale's Christian Association.

In 1925, Lewis and Lois Gilbert began their sixteen-year missionary career in China. Lewis was an instructor in religion at Yale-in-China, Changsha, from 1925 to 1927, when they were forced to return to the United States because of warfare between North and South Chinese factions. For the next two years they lived in Columbus, Ohio, where Lewis served on the staff of the Indianola Methodist Church.

The Gilberts returned to China under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1929. They served as ABCFM missionaries in North China from 1929 to 1941, when the Second World War forced them to return to the United States. Lewis Gilbert was ordained in Changli, China, in 1930.

Upon their return, Lewis Gilbert entered Harvard University, and earned the S.T.M. degree in 1944. During 1941-44, Lewis Gilbert also worked part-time as the Congregational Student Director for Harvard University and Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1946, the Gilberts planned to return to China so that Lewis could take a post as professor at Cheeloo University, but were unable to do so because of health problems.

From 1945 to 1951, Lewis Gilbert was stewardship minister in Cleveland for the Ohio Conference of Congregational Christian Churches. He then served as pastor of the College Street Congregational Church in Burlington, Vermont, from 1951 to 1954. He returned to work for the Ohio Conference as a minister and assistant superintendent in 1954, remaining until 1961.

Starting in 1954, Lewis Gilbert also held part-time appointments at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology. He served as a field work supervisor, 1954-61, and as a lecturer in practical theology, 1958-61. In 1961, the Gilberts left Ohio for Massachusetts, where Lewis Gilbert served as director of the board of pastoral supply for the New England Area Congregational Churches until 1968.

Lewis and Lois Gilbert had four children: Chandler "Tuck" Wright Gilbert (1926-2018; A.B. 1947), Alan Morse Gilbert (1929-89; A.B. 1950), Mariel Joy Kinsey (b. 1932; A.B. 1954), and Doris J. Bechtel (b. 1940; A.B. 1961).

Lois Chandler Gilbert died in 1969. In 1970 Lewis Gilbert remarried.  His second wife was Josephine Vincent Cowin (1901-1987), who had been an assistant in the Office of the Registrar of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, 1958-66; following her retirement from that position in 1966, she assisted in a geology research project at Oberlin from 1966 to 74.

Lewis Gilbert died in Oberlin, Ohio, on June 14, 1978. Following his death, his widow Josephine Gilbert organized and transcribed the missionary letters and journals of Lewis and Lois Gilbert.

Sources Consulted

Former Faculty and Staff Files of Lewis L. Gilbert and Josephine V. Cowin, RG 28/3 Alumni and Development Records.

Finding guide for the Lewis and Lois Gilbert Papers (Record Group No. 144) at Yale University Divinity School Library, online at http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/divinity.144.

Note written by Melissa Gottwald.