In Memory of W. Mason Olds (January 23, 1933 – March 11, 2022)
Rev. Dr. W. Mason Olds died on March 11, 2022, at the age of 89.
Mason was born on January 23, 1933, to Ruth Snyder and Leslie M. Olds and grew up in Cordele, GA. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Mercer University, GA in 1956, his Bachelor of Divinity from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, NY (1959), and his doctorate from Brown University, RI in 1973. His Ph.D. dissertation is titled: Three Pioneers of Religious Humanism: A Study of ‘Religion Without God’ in the Thought of John H. Dietrich, Curtis W. Reese, and Charles Francis Potter.
Mason was both a UU minister as well as a college professor. While a young minister before he became a Unitarian, he served on the local Planned Parenthood Committee of Dauphin County in Pennsylvania, and on August 28, 1963, participated in the Civil Rights march on Washington, D.C. where Martin Luther King gave his “I have a Dream” speech.
Rev. Dr. Olds was ordained by the Unitarian Society of Amherst, MA on May 2, 1965 (now the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst) where he served in the parish from 1965 to 1966. While there he was the main speaker at a gathering on the town common protesting the beating death of the Rev. James Reeb following a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. The first organized protest against the War in Vietnam on the east coast was held in the Unitarian Meeting House.
Under Rev. Dr. Olds’ leadership, the Unitarian Society of Amherst began a week-day kindergarten. He was instrumental in extending the Society’s program in several other areas including financing a weekly radio program strictly from public contributions. He was chaplain to the UU students at Amherst College and served as a chaplain at the University of Massachusetts too. Thereafter, Mason worked as a Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Springfield College, MA, for 30 years (1966-1996).
Whether it be in the ministry, or the classroom Mason made positive contributions to the Unitarian Universalist movement. His services to the denomination included serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the Unitarian Historical Society and he was a founding member of the Collegium for Studies in Liberal Religion. He gave the humanist lecture at several annual meetings of the UUA. At the June 1993 Assembly in Charlotte, he spoke about “God-Talk or No God-Talk–Is There a Difference?” and at the Minneapolis Meetings in 2010 his address was titled “John H. Dietrich: Preaching Humanism”. He was often invited to speak at Unitarian churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and, later in South Carolina while he was living there.
During his tenure at Springfield College, Mason was a visiting associate professor of religion at Mount Holyoke College, MA, a lecturer in Religion at Smith College, MA, and a visiting professor of Philosophy at Richmond College in England (1986). He was the editor of the Journal of Religious Humanism for five years in the 1990s. He presented papers at international conferences at Oxford University, England (1988) and St Andrews University in Scotland (1993). After retirement, he taught courses at The Citadel and The College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
In addition to being an excellent teacher, Mason could express great warmth and care to those around him. He could relate to new people quite readily. He attended live theaters, enjoyed the opera, and read a great deal in his spare time. He also enjoyed tennis, swimming, hiking, and travel. In his later years, he indulged in bike riding and a little beach walking and tried his hand at fiction writing. He published a great number of articles on ethical and religious subjects as well as three scholarly books with the most widely received, American Religious Humanism (Revised edition 2006).
Mason is survived by his wife of 63 years, Marjorie, daughter Catherine, son D. Mason and grandson Cameron as well as two sisters, Kaye Tolbert, and Ann Matthews. He was preceded in death by his mother, Ruth Snyder, and brother, Warner Olds.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mercer University, 1501 Mercer University Drive, Macon, GA 31207.
Notes of condolences can be written here.
Mason Olds wrote about my grandfather, the Unitarian minister, Curtis Reese. I’m sorry to have read about Prof Olds after his death in 2022. It would have been nice to have met him. My sympathies to his wfe Marjorie and family. I was born while my mother lived with her mother Fay Reese in 1945 at Lincoln Center while C.W. Reese was Dean and I was married there in 1967.
Mason Olds was a professor of mine at Springfield College in a class taught on Saturday mornings entitled Religion and Philosophy circa the Fall of ’67. He was one of the single finest instructors I ever had throughout all my years of study right through to my doctorate. I’m sorry I was not able to tell him what a positive influence he was in my career!