The Reverend Dan Higgins—military officer and chaplain, beloved parish minister, community servant and activist—died on 9 June 2017 at the age of 90.

Daniel Greeley Higgins Jr. was born in Easton, Maryland, on 27 February 1927 to   parents Anna and Dan Higgins. After high school Dan served in the army (1944-46) and   was graduated with a B.A. in political science by the University of Maryland in 1951.   He went on to Temple University (PA), earning an S.T.B in 1954.

With what he called a “religious instinct” since childhood, Dan preached his first sermon at his family’s Methodist church at age 15. After Methodist ordination in 1955, he returned to army service as a chaplain in post-war Korea (1956-59), followed by brief parish service in Methodist churches.

In the early 1960s the Rev’d Mr. Higgins sought UU affiliation, returned to Temple University for an S.T.M. in 1965, and was settled (1965-69) as associate minister to (and ordained a second time by) the First Parish in Lexington, MA. In 1969 he took a call to Lubbock, TX, but left in 1972 to work as BAWA’s programming director (Black and White Alternative/Action, UU). In 1975 Dan was called to the First Parish in Malden, MA, serving there until formal retirement in 1987, when he was named Minister Emeritus. Meanwhile he completed study for a D.Min. at Meadville Lombard Theological School in 1977.

Post-retirement, Dan moved back to the Chesapeake Bay, began pulpit and pastoral work at local UU congregations in Easton and Salisbury (MD) and helped start a new congregation—UUs of the Chester River (MD). A former president of that congregation remembers him as “the most unassuming person, perhaps the most humble person I have ever known. But his presence and dignity immediately filled a room.”

Dan is survived by children Daniel G. Higgins III, Cynthia Westlake, Ann Spicer, and Kim Clark, four grandchildren, and a great-grandson.