The Rev. Dr. Prescott Browning Wintersteen

The Rev. Dr. Prescott Browning Wintersteen, former minister of First Parish, Unitarian Universalist, of Milton, and retired Naval Chaplain died June 9, in Westwood, Massachusetts, at the age of 92.

Dr. Wintersteen attended Moses Brown School in Providence, RI, Harvard College (AB '34); Meadville Theological School, the University of Chicago Divinity School, Harvard University post-graduate studies ('49-50); and Harvard Divinity School (STB [MDiv] '54).  Degrees honoris causa:  Nasson College (DD); Meadville Lombard Theological School (DD); Curry College (LHD).

Dr. Wintersteen began his career in the 1930s as a manager at Stanley Woolen, a textile mill in Uxbridge.  He remained there for only a few years before following in his father's footsteps and becoming a Unitarian minister.  From 1938-39 he was assistant to the minister at the historic First Church in Boston.  He served as Minister at the Second and Congregational Unitarian Churches in Marblehead, MA from 1939-41.

Dr. Wintersteen's name was among the first to be called for the World War II draft.  Despite being exempt as a clergyman, he enlisted in the Navy in September, 1941.  During WWII, he served aboard the USS Augusta, the flagship for the United States' invasion of North Africa.  Among his shipboard duties were decoding secret messages in preparation for the landing in Africa and serving as a ship's liaison to General George S. Patton.  He also served as senior chaplain at the US Naval Air Station on Ford Island at Pearl Harbor.  After WWII, Commander Wintersteen served as Chaplain to Submarine Squadron Seven in the Pacific and was present for the first under-ice submarine operating experiment and the first experiments in launching missiles from submarines.  Commander Wintersteen also served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge during the Korean War. 

1955-57, as Chairman, Armed Forces Chaplain's Board (Army, Navy, Air Force), Far East, Chaplain Wintersteen was charged with development of policy governing the intermarriage of US service personnel and Japanese and Korean persons, as well as policy regarding the adoption of children of mixed blood in Japan and Korea.  At the request of the postwar Japanese Navy (the Japanese Self-Defense Force), he advised on the development of a training program designed to cope with the problem of the high incidence of suicide among Japanese youth serving in their armed forces.  He retired from the Navy in 1961 after 20 years of service.

Dr. Wintersteen was the minister at First Parish in Milton from 1961-76.  After retiring from the full-time ministry, he served as interim minister in churches in Stoughton and Salem, Massachusetts and as part-time minister of the First Universalist Church in Essex, Massachusetts, from 1978 to 1988.  He was active in charity and ecumenical work, including the Society for Ministerial Relief, Massachusetts Congregational Charitable Society; Evangelical Missionary Society in Massachusetts; and Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers.  He also organized and was the first president of the ecumenical Milton-Mattapan Clergy Association; member, Alumni Council of Harvard Divinity School; founder and director of the Milton Residences for the Elderly and Chairman of Youth Needs Study Committee of Milton; president of the Henry B. Martin Fund and the Swift Charity; president of the Frances Merry Barnard Home; vice president and director of the Children's Friend and Family Service Society of the North Shore; vice president and director of the Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Churches (Boston); member of the corporation/director:  Proctor Academy, Milton Hospital, Senexet House, Old South Asso­ciation in Boston.

Dr. Wintersteen was the author of many articles on topics including theology, history and pedagogy.  His major work was Christology in American Unitarianism (1977); co-authored with Harvard Professor George H. Williams A History of the Military Chaplaincy; and penned the Baccalaureate Hymn for the Harvard Commencement, Class of 1934.

Dr. Wintersteen is survived by his sons, Prescott B. Wintersteen, Jr. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Jeremy C. Wintersteen of Boston, Massachusetts; his daughter Wendy Wintersteen Girdosky of Tucson, Arizona; as well as six grandchildren.