Olive May Winchester (November 22, 1879 – February 15, 1947) was an American ordained minister and a pioneer biblical scholar and theologian in the Church of the Nazarene, who was in 1912 the first woman ordained by any trinitarian Christian denomination in the United Kingdom,Women, the Church and Ministry: Celebrating 100 years of women’s ordination in the UK. the first woman admitted into and graduated from the Bachelor of Divinity course at the University of Glasgow, and the first woman to complete a Doctor of Theology degree from the divinity school of Drew University."First ordained Scottish women to be celebrated at conference" , NCN News (April 4, 2012).
Early life Olive May Winchester was born on November 22, 1879, in Monson, Maine,Ancestry.com. California Death Index, 1940-1997. Place: Los Angeles; Date: 15 Feb 1947; Social Security: 0. However, it erroneously lists her birthplace as South Dakota. However, she was born in Maine, and lived at Monson, Maine. See 1880 United States Federal Census Record for Ollie M. Winchester; Maine > Piscataquis > Monson > District 70 > 16.April > 17 > Lusitania > 27. the oldest child of lawyer Charles B. Winchester (born August 8, 1851, in Corinna, Maine; died October 2, 1892, in Yankton, South Dakota),Henry Fritz-Gilbert Waters, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR), Vol. 79 (New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1925):140.Charles Winchester. and Sarah A. "Sadie" Blackstone Winchester (born May 1, 1853, in Pownal, Maine; died February 6, 1949, in Los Angeles, California).Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Pownal, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: M653_437; Page: 12; Image: 969; Family History Library Film: 803437.Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Pownal, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: M593_542; Page: 349B; Image: 25; Family History Library Film: 552041.1900 United States Federal Census Record for Olive M Winchester. Year: 1900; Census Place: Lynn Ward 4, Essex, Massachusetts; Roll: T623_644; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 379.South Dakota Territorial Census, 1885 Record for Ollice Winchester. Sanborn > District 93 > 3Ancestry.com. California Death Index, 1940-1997. Place: Los Angeles; Date: 6 Feb 1949; Social Security: 0. Winchester's parents were married in Portland, Maine, on February 22, 1879, in the Methodist Episcopal Church.Source Information: Ancestry.com. Maine Marriage Records, 1705-1922. Maine State Archives; Cultural Building, 84 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0084; Pre 1892 Delayed Returns; Roll #:105.Another source indicates they were married in 1880. See Who's Who, 848. Winchester was a relative of Oliver Fisher Winchester (born November 30, 1810, in Brookline, Massachusetts; died December 11, 1880, in New Haven, Connecticut), the manufacturer and marketer of the Winchester repeating rifle.Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993):, n.32, 159.
After June 25, 1880,1880 United States Federal Census Record for Ollie M. Winchester; 1880 United States Federal Census Maine > Piscataquis > Monson > District 70 > 16. the Winchester family left Monson, Maine, and by 1881 had relocated to Forestburg, in Sanborn County in Dakota Territory, where Charles taught school at upper Forestburg from its opening on November 7, 1881, until a permanent replacement started on December 26, 1881.South Dakota Historical Collections and Report, Vol. 26, (State Pub. Co., 1953):75. Winchester's younger sister, Edith Elizabeth Winchester (born June 22, 1884, in Forestburg, Dakota Territory; died August 1885 in Forestburg) died in infancy."Edith Elizabeth Winchester". By 1885 Charles Winchester was practicing as an attorney at law and land agent.Daily Republican (Mitchell, Dakota Territory: November 25, 1885).United States. Dept. of the Interior, United States. General Land Office, Decisions of the Department of the Interior and the General Land Office in Cases Relating to the Public Lands, Vol. 4 (G.P.O., 1886):332. In April 1886 Charles Winchester purchased The Woonsocket Times and relocated it to Forestburg.The Daily Huronite, (Huron, SD: April 2, 1886). After 1886 the Winchester family moved to the former territorial capital of Yankton, and later purchased a small hotel. By November 1889 the Winchester family had moved to Montana Street, in Huron, South Dakota.The Daily Huronite, (Huron, SD: November 18, 1889). On October 2, 1892, Charles Winchester was killed after an explosion in his hotel after he was spraying a room for bedbugs,"Another Bedbug Martyr", The Indian Chieftain (Vinita, Indian Territory) (October 06, 1892):1, Image 1."Hotelkeeper Burned to Death", Chicago Daily Tribune (October 4, 1892):9. and is interred at the Yankton City Cemetery.
After the death of her father, Winchester and her mother moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1895 Winchester became a Christian and later became an early member of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, a holiness denomination established in 1895, which subsequently merged with the Church of the Nazarene established by Phineas Bresee to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene in 1907.
Radcliffe Ladies College (1898-1902) In 1898 Winchester enrolled in Radcliffe Ladies College, which was then a division of Harvard University.T.A. Noble, Called to be Saints: A Centenary History of the Church of the Nazarene in the British Isles: 1906-2006 (Manchester, UK: Didsbury Press, 2006):37. As a consequence of a $25,000 inheritance from the estate of her relative Oliver Fisher Winchester, Winchester was able to finance her own education.Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993):n.32, 159.Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993):92.
While studying at Radcliffe, Winchester preached often. The Beulah Christian reported in March 1902 that on one occasion "Sister Olive Winchester, a member of this church, and senior at Radcliffe College, spoke at the morning service with special unction. More than a dozen souls were at the altar."
On June 24, 1902, Winchester graduated cum laude from Radcliffe with a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree,"Degrees Conferred on 100 Graduates", Boston Daily Globe (June 25, 1902):8. where she majored in Hebrew and Arabic. According to Nazarene historian Stan Ingersol, Winchester's Harvard instructor in Semitic languages regarded her as "a student of exceptional ability."Stan Ingersol, "Our Nazarene Foremothers: Woman in a New World: Olive Winchester’s Life in Theology and Higher Education." , New Horizons: Resources for Nazarene Clergywomen (February/March 2002):4.
Ministry and further education
Pentecostal Collegiate Institute (1902-1909) After graduation from Radcliffe College in 1902, Winchester taught at the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute (now Eastern Nazarene College) located at North Scituate, Rhode Island. Winchester travelled frequently on behalf of the college, raising money and holding services in small communities that lacked regular church services. Winchester reported that she had been entirely sanctified in 1902.Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993):94.
Winchester never married, although former student Ross E. Price maintains that she was engaged to Ernest W. Perry, the dean of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute (PCI), who drowned on Sunday November 23, 1902"THREE CANOEISTS DROWN. - Two Men and a Woman Perish in a Rhode Island Lake During a Squall", The New York Times (November 24, 1902)."Three Bodies Recovered in Lake", The New York Times (November 30, 1902). before their engagement had been made public. Price claimed that "I know I am right that she was engaged to the young man. And I know that when he drowned she then decided never to marry but to give herself to teaching."Ross E Price, Letter, 11 September 1962, in Rebecca Laird, Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993), n.34, 159.
On June 28, 1908, Winchester arrived in Glasgow as a passenger on the .Ancestry.com. UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960. Class: BT26; Piece: 313; Item: 25. On September 2, 1908, Winchester departed Southampton, England, on the , arriving in New York on September 10, 1908.Ancestry.com. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 Year: 1908; Microfilm Serial: T715; Microfilm Roll: T715_1140; Line: 19; Page Number: 111. Winchester taught at PCI until 1909 before moving to Glasgow to study at the divinity school of the University of Glasgow.
Parkhead Holiness Bible School (1909–1913) Winchester arrived in Liverpool, England on September 14, 1909, on the , accompanied by Rev. George Sharpe,Ancestry.com. UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960. Class: BT26; Piece: 384; Item: 6. the founder of the Pentecostal Church of Scotland, an indigenous holiness denomination later to merge with the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene in 1915.
In 1909 Winchester broke a gender barrier as the first woman matriculated into the Bachelor of Divinity course at the University of Glasgow.The Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT: February 19, 1910):7.The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, Vol. 18 (Harvard Graduates' Magazine Association, 1910):489. However, according to Ingersol, "More impressive was her record at the University of Glasgow, Scotland." During this time Winchester won the Cook and McFarlan Testimonial Prize of £21,Glasgow University Calendar, 580. awarded annually since 1847 in memory of Duncan Macfarlan, DD, Principal of the University of Glasgow (1823 to 1858), and George Cook, DD, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St Andrews, to "the most distinguished candidate in Greek, Moral Philosophy, Hebrew, Ecclesiastical History and Divinity."Cook and Macfarlan Testimonial Prize.
While in Scotland, Winchester became a member of the Pentecostal Church of Scotland. From 1909 Winchester also taught in that denomination's Parkead Holiness Bible School.Timothy L. Smith, Called Unto Holiness: The Story of The Nazarenes: The Formative Years (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene, 1962):186-187. On April 30, 1910, Winchester departed from Glasgow on the S.S. Cassandra, and subsequently arrived in Quebec, Canada on May 10, 1910, en route to the USA.Ancestry.com. Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895-1956. On May 11, 1910, Winchester "advocated that a holiness periodical and college be organized to help perpetuate and strengthen the holiness work in Scotland."
Winchester arrived in Glasgow on September 10, 1910, on the SS Cassandra after embarking in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.Ancestry.com. UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960. Class: BT26; Piece: 412; Item: 21. On April 18, 1911, Winchester departed from Liverpool on the SS Franconia and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 26, 1911.Ancestry.com. Boston Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1943. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, Massachusetts, 1917-1943; Microfilm Serial: T938; Microfilm Roll: 162. Winchester and her mother arrived in Liverpool on September 10, 1911, on the SS Salaga from New York.Ancestry.com. UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960. Class: BT26; Piece: 475; Item: 7.