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'''Maximilian Adelbert "Madcap Maxie" Baer''' ([[February 11]], [[1909]] – [[November 21]], [[1959]]) was a famous [[United States|American]] [[boxing|boxer]] of the 1930s, onetime [[List of Heavyweight Champions|Heavyweight Champion of the World]], [[actor]] and entertainer.
== Early life ==
Maximilian Adalbert Baer was born on February 11, 1909 in [[Omaha, Nebraska|Omaha]], [[Nebraska]], the son of Jacob Baer (1875–1938) who was of [[French people|French]]-[[Jewish]] ancestry and Dora Bales (1877–1938) who was of [[Germans|German]]-[[Scots-Irish]] ancestry. His eldest sister was Frances May Baer (1905–1991), his younger sister was Bernice Jeanette Baer (1911–1987), his younger brother was boxer-turned-actor Jacob Henry Baer, better known as [[Buddy Baer]] (1915–1986) and his adopted brother was August "Augie" Baer (1913–1992) [http://www.ancestry.com].
Jacob Baer came from a long line of butchers. His father Achille or Aschill Baer {1831–1900} operated butcher shops in the frontier towns of Cheyenne in Wyoming Territory [http://www.ancestry.com] and Red Jacket, Michigan [http://www.ancestry.com], before moving his family to Denver, Colorado [http://www.ancestry.com]. Achille/Aschill and his wife Frances "Fanny" Fischl {1852–1925} had 7 sons and 2 daughter. Their sons, including Max's father Jacob, were named for the tribes of Israel and the children's early education was in Jewish schools. [Brumbelow, Joseph, S. "Buddy Baer - Autobiography" 2003].
Jacob met Max's mother Dora Bales, when he was an employee of the Swift Meatpacking Company's plant in South Omaha, Nebraska, where Dora's father John Bales, was also employed. Dora and Jacob married on Christmas Eve of 1904. Max's sister Frances was born in the Fall of 1905. Family legend has it Max made his lusty, 10 pound appearance during a brutal Nebraska snowstorm on February 11, 1909. In late summer of 1910 when Max was six months old, Swift & Company transferred the family by passenger train to Denver, Colorado where Jacob would enter a management position. The Baer's lived in Denver from 1911-15, where Bernice and Buddy were born. They spent a short time in Kaylor, New Mexico, where Jacob took charge of a packing house. There were no schools in Kaylor so Bernice was sent away to boarding school in Denver. The family was so upset at being split up they moved back to Denver, staying until 1919. The Gradon Mercantile Company soon offered Jacob a job in Durango, Colorado and off the family went. [Brumbelow, Joseph, S. "Buddy Baer - Autobiography" 2003]. In May 1922, tired of the harsh Colorado winters, which aggravated Frances' rheumatic fever and Jacob's high blood pressure [http://www.livermorehistory.com/Archive%20-%20Audio/Oral%20Histories/_Menu%20Oral%20Histories.html], the Baers piled into a just purchased automobile and began the long drive to the milder climes of the West Coast, where Dora's sister lived in Alameda, across the Bay from San Francisco, California. [Brumbelow, Joseph, S. "Buddy Baer - Autobiography" 2003] They drove more than 1,000 miles along unpaved roads, which only a few generations before had felt the wooden wheels of the emigrants' covered wagons on their surfaces.
Jacob's expertise in the butcher business resulted in his acceptance of numerous job offers around the San Francisco Bay Area. While living in Hayward, Max took his first job as a delivery boy for John Lee Wilbur. Wilbur ran a grocery store on B Street and bought meat from Jacob. The Baer's lived in the Northern California towns of Hayward, San Leandro and Galt [Brumbelow, Joseph, S. "Buddy Baer - Autobiography" 2003] before moving to [[Livermore, California|Livermore]] in 1926. Livermore was true cowboy country, surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of rolling hills and rangeland which supported large cattle herds that provided fresh meat to the rapidly burgeoning towns nearby. In 1928, Jacob bought the Twin Oaks Ranch in Murray Township where he raised over 2,000 hogs, and which he worked with daughter Frances' husband, Louis Santucci. [Brumbelow, Joseph, S. "Buddy Baer - Autobiography" 2003] Baer often credited working as a butcher boy, carrying heavy carcasses of meat, sledge-hammering cows with one blow, and working at a gravel pit, for developing his powerful shoulders.
== Professional boxing career ==
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