The Reverend Joseph Ira Craig died on June 11, 2009 at the age of 82. Rev. Craig was born on October 9, 1926 in Youngstown, Ohio, to Ira B. and Dorothy D. Craig.  After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class, Rev. Craig joined the US Army Air Force.  He served as an aerial photographer in Italy from 1944 to 1946.

The Reverend Arnold Farrow Westwood died on Sunday, August 16, 2009, at Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a result of injuries sustained in a fall the previous day.  He was 88. Rev. Westwood was born on May 19, 1921, in Toledo, Ohio, to Unitarian minister Rev. Horace Westwood and Elizabeth Farrow Westwood.  He attended the University of California, Berkeley, and Tufts University graduating in 1942.  He earned his STB from Crane Theological School at Tufts in 1948.

The Reverend H. Kyle Nagel died on November 18, 2009, at the age of 80. Rev. Nagel was born on May 4, 1929 in Houston, Texas.  He graduated from Southwestern University in 1949 and earned his divinity degree from Duke University in 1952.  He also studied at Harvard Divinity School and Tufts University in the 1960’s. 

The Reverend Dr. Timothy Ward Jensen.  He died on Sunday, August 9, 2009 of lung cancer in the presence of family and friends at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA.  He was 52. Rev.

The Reverend Stephen D. Howard.  He died on Monday, July 15, 2009, of cancer at Fisher House Hospice in Amherst, MA.  He was 78. Rev. Howard was born on November 26, 1930 in Greenfield, MA to Lee and Rachel Howard.  He graduated with a BA in History from American International College in Springfield, MA in 1953 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1959.

The Reverend Kenneth C. Hawkes died on July 26, 2009, while in the loving and gentle care of staff from Allegiance Hospice. He was 96. Rev. Hawkes was born to Maurice W. and Inez Clark Hawkes on June 3, 1913 in Portland, ME. He attended Gorham Teachers College and graduated from Colby College in 1942. While serving as acting pastor of the Pride’s Corner Union Church of Westbrook, ME, and the Universalist Church of Scarborough and South Buxton, ME, he trained for the Universalist ministry under the Rev. Dr. Harry E.

The Reverend Jean Witman Gilpatrick died on June 4, 2009 in Bethesda, Maryland.  She was 84. Rev.

The Reverend Forrest Church, acclaimed author of more than two dozen books and longtime minister of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City, died on September 24, 2009, following a three-year battle with esophageal cancer. He was sixty-one years old. Church is survived by his children, Frank, Nina, Jacob and Nathan, and by his wife, Carolyn Buck Luce.

The Reverend Dr. James Madison Barr died on June 10, 2009 at his home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was 90. Rev. Barr was born on March 17, 1919 in Belhaven, North Carolina to James Madison Barr, Jr and Alice Way Barr. His family relocated to Virginia, where he attended Fork Union Military Academy, graduating in 1935. He continued his education at the University of Virginia, studying accounting and business before graduating with a law degree in 1947.

The Reverend James Marshall Bank died on July 23, 2009, after three years of living with cancer.  He was 65. Rev. Bank was born on November 10, 1943 to Rev. Milton Harold Bank, a Methodist minister, and Fern Richey Bank in Hancock, MI.  He graduated from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, in 1965.  He earned three graduate divinity degrees from Boston University, an STB in 1968, an AM in Church History in 1969, and a second AM in New Testament Studies in 1976.