Waitstill Hastings Sharp (1902 - 1983)

Born 1 May 1902 in Hingham, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Martha (Ingham) Cogan — married 1927 (to 1954) in Hingham, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States

Died Feb 1983 at age 80 in Greenfield, Franklin, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Sharp, born in Boston in May 1902, was the son of naturalist author and professor Dallas Lore Sharp and Grace Hastings, as well as a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. He was a graduate of Boston University (1923), Harvard Law School (1926) and Harvard University (M.A., 1931). While in his third year of law school, he got to know Dr. Eugene Shippen, minister of Second Church in Boston. He became part-time director of religious education at Second Church, and later, through the support of Dr. Shippen, National Director of Religious Education for the American Unitarian Association (AUA). Several years later, he was ordained a Unitarian minister. In 1933 he took the pulpit of a small church in Meadville, Pennsylvania. In 1927 he had married Martha Ingham Dickie, a social worker who also worked with local internationalist and peace groups. In April 1936, he was appointed pastor at the Unitarian Church of Wellesley Hills in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The Sharps were recruited by Reverend Dr. 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. With his wife Martha, in 1939 he administered relief to hundreds of endangered Jews and other refugees in Prague. In the following year, Waitstill and Martha traveled to southern Europe to continue a relief and rescue program for endangered refugees as representatives of the newly formed Unitarian Service Committee. While visiting southern France, Waitstill worked closely with the World YMCA to help Czech servicemen to escape from Vichy France. Waitstill also forged a collaboration with Varian Mackey Fry to look after Fry's refugee clients in Lisbon. In this capacity, Martha and Waitstill personally escorted the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger from Marseille, France, on his journey to America. The documentary film Defying the Nazis: Sharp's War, chronicling the heroic efforts of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, has been produced by their grandson, Artemis A.W. Joukowsky, III, of Sherborn, Massachusetts, along with Ken Burns, through the support and partnership of WETA, PBS, the Unitarian Universalist community, several well-known foundations, and many individuals.

Sources

• "Martha and Waitstill Sharp: A Timeline of their Lives", Two Who Dared, film website
• Di Figlia, Ghanda. "Martha Sharp Cogan (1905-1999) and Waitstill Sharp (1902-1984): Unitarian Service Committee Pioneers". Harvard Square Library. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
• GUIDE Martha and Waitstill Sharp Collection, ca. 1905-2005", United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Joukowsky, Artemis (6 September 2016). Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-080707182-3. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
• Subak, Susan Elisabeth (2010). Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803225251.
• "Waitstill and Martha Sharp". The Righteous Among The Nations. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
• "Sharp's War". PBS. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
• Cooper, Clint (16 February 2013). "Unitarian Church to screen couple's heroics". Chattanooga Times Free Press. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
• "Martha and Waitstill Sharp". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 10 September 2016.

• Waitstill Hastings Sharp, "Massachusetts Births, 1841-1915

Database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FX4T-7C2 : 1 March 2016), Waitstill Hastings Sharp, 1902.

• Waitstill Sharp, "United States Census, 1940"database w/images,FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/K4NN-CYQ : accessed 20 September 2016), Waitstill Sharp, Wellesley Town, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 11-286, sheet 3B, family 62, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 1633.
• Waitstill Sharp, "United States Social Security Death Index" database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JLMV-643 : 20 May 2014), Waitstill Sharp, Feb 1983; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
• Waitstil H Sharp, "Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003" database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VZTX-HJG : 4 December 2014), Waitstil H Sharp, 25 Feb 1983; from "Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003," database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2005); citing Greenfield, Massachusetts, death certificate number 019933, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Health Services, Boston.