Max Joseph Burbach

BURBACH, Max Joseph Sr. age 93 of Omaha, NE.
September 13, 1929 - June 21, 2023

Former Hebron High School tuba player Max J. Burbach, who taught college psychology before helping hundreds of immigrants become U.S. citizens in Omaha, was a beloved father of eight and a friend who gave good heart and dad jokes to everyone he met.

Max’s own heart finally gave out Wednesday, June 21, after 93 years. His spirit lives on in the love he gave and the smiles (and sometimes groans) that he inspired, and in the immortality promised by his Catholic faith.

Max was born September 13, 1929, in the farmhouse of his parents, second-generation German-Americans Joseph and Frieda (Willy) Burbach. With his older brother Jim, Max grew strong doing chores on their small farm outside Hebron, Nebraska, and walking or riding bicycles to town for school. Once when Max had a bad headache, his brother Jim carried him all the way home on his back, a la the famous Boys Town statue. Recounting the odyssey decades later on Max’s deck in Omaha, Jim said, “Actually, he WAS heavy.” Ever quick with a quip, Max replied, “Well Jim, the truth is, I didn’t really have a headache.”

Max learned to play the piano as a child, like his fellow Willy descendants. Even into his 90s, he played songs composed by his maternal grandfather, Jos. A. Willy.

Max graduated from Hebron High School in 1946 at the age of 16. He played a little football as well as the tuba, although milking cows on the family farm took precedence over athletics. Interested in becoming a priest, he attended St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and major seminary in Milwaukee, studying philosophy and theology and barely passing Greek before deciding to serve his God and fellow humans in street clothes.

Max earned his bachelor's degree from Creighton University. He set pins by hand in an Omaha bowling alley to help pay his way through college. He rode the streetcar down 24th Street to student-teach at Omaha South High School. He worked as a counselor for a summer at Boys Town. His graduate school studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were interrupted by the Korean War. Max served in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s. He was stationed in Chicago as a psychologist. While he worked hard at his stateside duties, the greatest wartime danger Max faced was when, surrounded by Chicago White Sox fans at Comiskey Park, he witnessed one of his New York Yankees heroes, Mickey Mantle, hit a line-drive home run and could not entirely suppress a cheer. Max eventually earned his masters degree from UNL in educational psychology.

He married the small but formidable Jeannine Ziegler on December 27, 1956, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Hebron. Max taught at high schools in Creston and Milford in Nebraska, and was principal of Julesburg High School in Colorado. He went on to teach psychology for 10 years at St. Benedict’s College (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas. He worked summer jobs, including picking apples and labor in a foundry, to put food on the table. Beginning in 1971, Max went to work for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, for several years on the Canadian border near Pembina, North Dakota, and then for nearly 20 years as an immigration examiner in Omaha. He semi-retired at 65. He took a part-time job jockeying cars at the Omaha Auto Auction for 23 years, finally retiring at 88.

True to his farm roots, Max grew bountiful vegetable and flower gardens, including, though it pained him, milkweed at Jeannine’s insistence. He loved all Nebraska, Creighton and UNO sports. He also got a kick out of fishing.

“I like to sit on the dock, put a worm and a bobber on my line and throw it in the water,” Max would say. “And if I’m lucky, the fish won’t bother me too much.”

What he enjoyed most, more than a crappie bite or even mashed potatoes and chicken gravy, was the company of other people. He liked hearing other people’s stories as much as he liked telling his.

Max was a devoted member of two parishes, St. Thomas More and Sacred Heart, his adopted church home. He volunteered for several years to help teach RCIA at Sacred Heart, where his white beard and hair, his boyish smile and his uplifting demeanor made him a familiar and beloved figure in the balcony above the choir and at the sign of peace in the aisles. He made it to an amazing number of his grandkids’ soccer, football, volleyball, softball, lacrosse and basketball games, dance recitals, school plays, and grandparents’ days.

Max and Jeannine were fruitful and multiplied. They raised eight children and helped, by their actions and example of placing love above all, to nurture 26 grandchildren and, so far, 13 great-grandchildren. Like Jeannine did, Max made his kids’ spouses and partners feel welcome and valuable, and he and they enriched each other’s lives.

Max was preceded in death by Jeannine in 2011, and by his parents and big brother Jim. He is survived by his children: Michael (Mary), of St. Paul, Minnesota; Christopher (Judith); Angela; Max (Susan); Ann Gray, all of Omaha; Katrina (Douglas) Kisgen, of San Antonio, Texas; Thomas; and Rachel (James) Burns, both of Omaha; 26 grandchildren: Etsegenet, Dagamawit, Meheret Burbach, Aaron and Elijah Nygren Burbach; Justin (Megan) Combs, Kristen Denman, and Nicole (Michael) Borden; Margaret (Michael) Murakami, Joe (Angie), and Hannah Burbach; Ashley, Alexis, Amos, and Adam Gray; Cassandra, Alexander, Joseph, Olivia, and Thomas Kisgen; Max and Will Burbach-Domeyer; and Samantha, Braeden, Gabrielle and Emma Burns; and great-grandchildren: Ariana, Jacob, Maeve, Max, Camila, Kaleah, Kalani, Gianna, Asher, Grayson, Maizie, Ella and Ayda.

Visitation, Wednesday, 5-7 p.m. with 7 p.m. Wake and Rosary service at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, 4804 Grover St., Omaha. Funeral Mass Thursday, 10:30 a.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 2207 Wirt St., Omaha.

Memorials to Sacred Heart Catholic Church or St. Thomas More Catholic Church.

By the way, have you heard about the weasel who walked into the bar?

“We don’t get many of your kind in here,” the bartender says. “What’ll you have?”

“Pop,” goes the weasel.