Even though his brother David was closer in age, I guess Ed and I were best cousin friends since we were the youngest. We were so happy when his family moved from Vermont to West Virginia. Thus started his love of WVU all things West Virginia! How he enjoyed those country roads! At first we made the mistake of going to WVU vs Maryland games. We quickly realized we shouldn’t do that! In time I think I had more WVU stuff and he had more Maryland stuff than me. David got Freyja VT stuff and I got MD stuff but he was mostly proud when she was wearing Mountaineer stuff!

We had so many great trips together like when we went to Atlanta to see David and Ed asked what Sherman was not on the side of the mountain celebrating all the great Confederate generals! 😎 David,Ed and I had an awesome trip to Phoenix to see WVU beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl!

My son Tim and I were fortunate to visit Ed, Dinah and Freyja in Thailand. We had an excellent time! When Ed left for the airport, we didn’t realize we were giving our last hugs!

We were looking forward to them coming to the US this summer! Even if Ed couldn’t eat BBQ! 😎

We are going to miss Ed so much! We love Dinah and Freyja and hope to be a part of their future’s forever!

RIP Bear!

Cousin Roy

How Edward became Edward Bear:

Well, my parents (mom in particular) used to read us a lot of books, and Winnie the Pooh was a favorite. I think mom knew that Winnie was originally Edward Bear, so everyone took to calling him that.

Around 1980, one of our cousins brought him an African shirt called a Dashiki. He loved that shirt and wore it a bunch, and we started calling him the Dashiki Bear.

I have so many wonderful memories of Ed.  We seemed to follow each other around the country, even before we knew it.  We both lived in South Burlington before moving to WV (where our families met).  And we both ended up in Wisconsin for Graduate School.  One of my favorite memories was from one of the many Thanksgivings that we helped load shopping carts at the food pantry in Beckley.  Each of us had a station - I think I was in charge of frozen pounds of butter - and Ed was hauling frozen turkeys out of the freezers.  He would literally toss them to whoever was standing next to the carts and each time he would yell "flying frozen turkey!" 

He was so witty and smart and had such a great sense of humor.   I remember he gave me one of his D&D inspired stories to read in which the goblins were the protagonists and they were just trying to figure out how to catch and eat the squirrels in the forest, but those pesky adventurers kept getting in the way.  Eventually they just burned the forest to the ground and grabbed the squirrels as they ran out of the flames.  Although this was just a silly story, it showed Ed's ability to think from the perspective of the outcast. I am heartbroken at his loss.