FORMER students and parishioners of the Rev Dr Douglas Wingeier will be glad to know, and congratulate him for his honour of receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award recently from Boston University School of Theology. This event took place at a special luncheon during the 50th reunion of the class of 1954 of the school in May this year.
The Rev Dr Wingeier earned both his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Boston University and was, on the recommendation of the School of Theology Alumni/ae Board, given the award for “outstanding achievement and distinction in service to the profession” of ministry.
As a Methodist missionary in Singapore, he was a lecturer in Christian Education and Director of Field Education at Trinity Theological College from 1963 to 1970. He also served concurrently as Pastor of the English congregation at Foochow Methodist Church from 1963 to 1966 and was, in 1967, appointed Pastor of the Chinese congregation of Queenstown (Chinese) Methodist Church. He and wife, Carol, had studied Mandarin full-time at Yale University, and continued to study with Trinity College Dean Rev Peter Hsieh, enabling him to be fluent in the language. It is interesting that his pastorate at Queenstown was to the Chinese congregation when the Rev T. C. Nga pastored the English congregation.
After returning to the United States in 1970, he taught at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois to round off a career stretching 45 years.
Retired from the active ministry, he now lives in North Carolina (36 Bust-O-Dawn, Waynesville, NC 28786, USA), and continues to teach and write, and is engaged in peace activism.
Grandparents missionaries too
On a historical note, the Rev Dr Wingeier was the second member of his family to serve as a missionary in Singapore. His maternal grandfather, Charles S. Buchanan, came to Singapore and married his wife, Emily, in 1895. He began teaching at Anglo-Chinese School, and was appointed lay missionary in 1897, and appointed Principal from 1903 to 1905.
Thence, he was re-assigned to Java where he was responsible for work in the local vernacular in Tjisaroea-Buitenzorg and was, as a member of the Malaysia Annual Conference, appointed District Superintendent from 1913 to 1915. He played an important role in building a hospital in a missionary career spanning the best part of 30 years in the region.
