Oliver Salant Winter

Oliver Salant Winter died peacefully on Sunday, November 28, 2021, at the age of 94. He was born on December 21, 1926, in New York City, the son of Richard and Harriet Salant Winter. His father, a merchant, had come to the United States from Russia in 1919, and his mother was a second-generation Russian immigrant.

Oliver grew up in the Connecticut town of Wilton, a suburb of New York City. He joined the Army Air Corps after his eighteenth birthday, served in the Pacific Theater of Operations, and was discharged as a sergeant. He graduated from Harvard College in 1950. He studied medicine in Switzerland at the University of Zurich and received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1958. He took specialty training in internal medicine and practiced in Wyoming, Ohio, and in Wilton, Connecticut.

Oliver learned to fly in the early 1960s, and aviation became a lifelong passion. In 1975 he joined the U.S. Air Force as a physician, and he received certification in Aerospace Medicine from the American Board of Preventive Medicine. Oliver earned a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine degree from Tulane University in 1978. He became a senior aviation medical examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration and opened an office in his hangar at Chester Airport in Chester, Connecticut. He continued to practice medicine until age 93, offering physical examinations and medical advice to pilots wishing to obtain or renew certification from the FAA. Oliver was well known and beloved by pilots from all over the country.

Oliver was married to Willa Petschek from 1951 to 1955, and to Sara Deibert from 1958 to 1970. With Sara Deibert he had two children, Jennifer and Christopher. In 1970 he married Jacqueline Chambers, who preceded him in death in 2017. He lived in Madison, Connecticut from 1989 until 2020, when he moved to the independent living community of Masonicare Chester Village in Chester, Connecticut.

He is survived by his two children, Jennifer Winter of Oak Park, IL, and Chris Winter of Englewood, CO; by his granddaughter Lauren Winter, of Lawrence, KS; and by three stepsons, John Knight of Alabama, Winn Wilson of Connecticut, and Lee Wilson of Connecticut.

Before his death, Oliver requested that no funeral be held. Arrangements have been entrusted to Luddy Peterson funeral home 205 S. Main Street New Britain, CT 06051.  In lieu of flowers, please consider donating in memory of Oliver to Wounded Warrior Project, hps://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/donate or Partners in Health, hps://www.pih.org/.