Horace F. Westwood World War II Letters

Collection

Call Number: MS215

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Scope and Contents

This collection consists of letters written by Horace F. Westwood (Crane 1938), U.S. Naval Reserve Chaplain's Corps, during his assignment to a Marine Corps unit in the South Pacific from spring 1943 to Christmas Eve 1944. Letters include Westwood's drawings to explain his experience in the military to his children, Joan and Wallis. Also included is a short biography written by his family, a note explaining the several generations of the Westwood family having graduated from Tufts, news clippings that detail his efforts as a minister in Houston, Texas, and a vertical file containing a transcript and correspondence from his time at the Crane Theological School.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within 1943 -- 1944
Creation: 1932 -- 2003

Creator

Westwood, Horace F. (Horace Frederick) (Person)

Language of Materials

English

Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Please see “Reproductions and Use” on the Digital Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permission to publish. No documentation is available regarding the intellectual property rights in this collection.

Biographical / Historical

Horace F. Westwood was a minister and Reverend of the Unitarian Church and served the Church throughout the United States and Canada. Westwood graduated from the Crane Theological School in 1938, during which time he served as a minister to the Unitarian Church in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. In 1941-42, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Chaplain’s Corps. Soon after the completion of his training in Michigan, Westwood was assigned to duty in a Marine Corps unit that was to be stationed in the South Pacific. He spent 21 months, from spring 1943 to Christmas Eve 1944, in the South Pacific; the largest period of time being spent at Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. From the conclusion of World War II until 1950, Westwood served as Reverend to the Unitarian Memorial Church in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

From 1950 to 1972, Reverend Westwood served the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas. He oversaw the building of a new Church, which was completed in March 1952, there and became a community leader in the movement to desegregate the city of Houston. The First Church voted to desegregate its services in June 1954, becoming the first church in Houston to take such a step. In 1962, he published a collection of sermons and prayers called The Search for Understanding. He moved to Vermont in 1972 and would go on to serve in Unitarian and Universalist churches in the region, as well as taking up services as interim minister at a number of churches in the United States and Canada.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet (1 box)

Additional Description

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in one series.

Processing Information

This collection was processed in June 2014 by Dan Bullman with the supervision of Susanne Belovari, Archivist for Reference and Collections. Folder titles added by archives staff are in brackets [].