FOREWORD TO
"Those who do not treasure up the memories of their ancestors do not deserve to be remembered by posterity." -Edmund Burke
Mankind in isolation can rarely achieve happiness and even finds survival difficult. Most human beings are gregarious and find their greatest fulfillment in associations with their own kind. Tribes and clans in many societies often have been the developers and preservers of moral or social stability, cultural refinement and economic well-being. Each of us is, in fact, an intricate, tangled composite of our past and present. Unfortunately, our modern mode of life has done much to obliterate family relationships. Thus we lose a valuable aid in understanding the forces in our lives that have made us what we are. The Lord in his wisdom has asked us to keep family and personal records. Such records, when preserved, can help us to unlock some of the doors of the past and clarify our relations with the here and now. Recently, in the search for some information on Gubler-related lines, one of our family sent a photograph of her aged father to a family organization in Switzerland. This man was three or four generations removed from their line but the members of the organization were unanimous in their opinion that he looked like "a member of the clan." All of us who bear the Gubler name or whose ancestors bear that name likewise carry in us some of the character, personality and physical traits which stem from our Swiss heritage. This volume is intended to give each of us some perspective about ourselves as well as to give us pride in an honorable family name.
The name Gubler is derived from the German name for a mountain crest or ridge and when applied to people, means those who come from or live on the mountain crest. Is it any wonder that so many of us feel an affinity to the mountains and are only completely happy when we are among them! In modern-day Switzerland, the Gubler name is still prominent and is found among esteemed members of most professions. Only a few years ago one of Switzerland's best known artists bore that name. Gublers have also become dispersed throughout the Western world and the name can be found in telephone books in such widely separated cities as London, New York, Chicago, as well as in the western United States. Regardless of where one finds Gubler descendants, such traits as frugality and industry seem common to all.
Mueliheim is a quiet little farming village in Northern Switzerland. In the summer it is like a manicured park, covered from lowland to the mountain tops with fine, lacy grass and tiny white, blue and yellow flowers. Because there is no need for irrigation there are no ugly ditches. Few fences break the almost continuous rolling, checkered squares which mark by their different shades the various green crops. Most of the houses are two story red brick with planters hanging from every window and filled with a dazzling array of petunias and geraniums. In the years since our ancestors accepted the gospel, there has been little change. A few years ago one of our clan, Emil Gubler, sought out the ancestral homeland. How surprised he was to find that one of the town's most prominent citizens bore the same name as he! One must see the pastoral beauty of Mueliheim and its surroundings to understand the depth of the conviction that drove our ancestors to the New World and kept them here in the face of drought, sickness and discouragement. One only need compare present-day Santa Clara, which for decades was almost wholly "Swiss," with the area which surrounds it to realize how hard but successfully they worked to carve a homeland from it and to duplicate, as nearly as possible, the beauty they had left behind.
"History is every man's story, the road along which man came. Seek it wherever you are, striking down roots that will nourish and strengthen you. For only by knowing of yesterday can today and tomorrow have meaning, only then do we keep our perspective, only then can we steady our aim." (Author unknown)
Source: Gubler families in America 1857-1973, edited by Laura G. Hendrix and Donworth V. Gubler, 1973, pg 219-224.