His peers at a Chicago-based theology school described him as a distinguished clergyman devoted to the causes of liberal religion, a tireless advocate for social justice and a global humanitarian.

He championed issues that shaped our nation’s history, including his participation in the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott to protest the segregation of blacks on city buses.

He even shared a final supper in 1965 with the Rev. James Reeb, who was killed in Selma, Ala., during a civil rights march later that night by a mob of whites armed with clubs.

The Rev. David Harris Cole, a longtime resident of Edgecomb and more recently Brunswick, died Monday. The Unitarian Universalist minister was 90.

“Though he was only 5-foot-10-inches tall, David had a very commanding presence,” said his wife, Isabelle “Iska” Cole of Brunswick.

The Rev. Cole was born in Lynn, Mass., enrolled at Tufts University as a business administration major, but transferred to Crane Theological School – a Universalist seminary at Tufts.

After graduation, he served as a Unitarian Universalist minister at churches in Danvers, Mass., Chicago, Urbana, Ill., Rockville, Md., and Cleveland. He also worked as an interim minister in Boston, Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and Shelter Rock, N.Y.

Serving the church was in his blood. One of his great-grandfathers, Thomas Boston, was a radical Scottish Presbyterian minister, his wife said.

“David had no idea at all about his ancestry until his mother brought out this book that described (Boston),” his wife said. “He went through the book and realized it was in his genes.”

The Rev. Cole came to Maine in the early 1960s looking for property. His wife said he bought an enormous five-bedroom home overlooking the Sheepscot River in Edgecomb for $11,000.

“When he came back he told me ‘I just bought a house in Maine and you are the only person I know who could fill it,’” said his wife, who had five children from a previous marriage.

They were married on July 25, 1963. The couple spent the next 44 years living in the home, which they called Forty Oaks. It offered spectacular views of the ocean and Boothbay Harbor. “It was our happy place,” she said.

His trips to Alabama during the 1950s and ’60s gave him the opportunity to know Martin Luther King Jr. King even invited the Rev. Cole over for dinner.

At one point, he and several other ministers were thrown in jail for protesting in favor of equal rights for blacks, his wife recalled. “I remember that night. He got one phone call, but instead of calling a lawyer, he called our church,” his wife said.

The Rev. Cole traveled around the world, including a three-month stay in India, where he studied Buddhism.

After World War II, he traveled to Germany on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to locate homes for orphaned children displaced by the war.

Several years ago, the Rev. Cole was honored for his work by Meadville Lombard, a theology school based in Chicago. He served on the school’s board of directors.

During the presentation, school officials read a quote from a passage he had written about his life’s journey.

It read, in part: “On the whole, it has been a good voyage, but I’m sure the best is yet to come. My love of ministry, my wife, my children, all seven of them, my friends and loved ones, my theology, my numerous projects, including my 19-room house, keeps me well-occupied. Life goes on. I’m glad it does. The pilgrimage continues.”

 

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at: dhoey@pressherald.com

 

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