Waitstill Sharp
| Waitstill Sharp | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Waitstill Hastings Sharp 1 May 1902 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | 1983 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
Boston University (B.A., 1923) Harvard Law School (J.D, 1926) Harvard University (M.A., 1931) |
| Occupation | Unitarian minister |
| Known for | humanitarian rescue work before and during World War II |
| Spouse(s) |
Martha Sharp (1927-1954) Monica Allard Clark (m. 1955) |
| Children | Hastings Sharp (b. 1932) Martha Content Sharp Joukowsky (b. 1937) |
Waitstill Hastings Sharp (1 May 1902–1983) was a Unitarian minister who was involved in humanitarian work and social justice.
Sharp was born in Boston in May 1902, son of Grace Hastings and naturalist, author, and professor Dallas Lore Sharp. Through his mother, he is a descendant of Thomas Hastings, who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634.
Sharp graduated from Boston University with an undergraduate degree in 1923, from Harvard Law School with a J.D. in 1926, and with an M.A. from Harvard University in 1931.
While in his third year of law school he got to know Eugene Shippen, National Director of Religious Education for the American Unitarian Association (AUA), and minister of Second Church in Boston, and later became part-time director of religious education at Second Church. A social worker involved with local internationalist and peace groups, Martha Ingham Dickie, would become his spouse in 1927, and remain his strong ministry partner in his outreach and rescue work in Europe during the Second World War.
Several years later, he was ordained a Unitarian minister, and he took the pulpit of a small church in Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1933. In April 1936, he was appointed pastor at the Unitarian Church of Wellesley Hills in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
The Sharps were recruited by Reverend Everett Baker of the American Unitarian Association to accept a posting in Czechoslovakia, as representatives of a new program, initiated by Robert Dexter, to help endangered refugees. He administered relief to hundreds of endangered Jews and other refugees in Prague, with his wife Martha, beginning in 1939.
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