Harry Frederick Edge, 1914-2003

  The Rev. H. Frederick Edge died July 4, 2003, in Orange Park, Fla. He was born July 6, 1914, to James F. and Hazel P. Edge in Clarksburg, W.Va. He attended Shenandoah College and Indiana University and in 1943 began his ministerial life in Kingswood, W.Va. He served Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) and United Methodist churches in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland for the next 47 years until health demanded his final retirement in 1990. Churches he served included Kingswood, Manassas, Edinburg, Sleepy Creek, South Branch, Reliance, Churchville, Winchester Charge, Toms Brook, Otterbein (Dayton), Potomac, Shenandoah Station, Toano, Whaleyville, North Franklin, Scottsville, Magnolia (Portsmouth), and Park View.

  He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Alice Belva Edge. Other surviving family includes Harry F. Edge, Jr., Maurertown, Va.; James H. and Joan Edge, Oklahoma City, Okla.; David E. and Trish Edge, Traverse City, Mich.; Alice E. and Andrew Jones, Jacksonville, Fla.; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren and their families.

  A former historian of the Virginia EUB Conference, he continued this love during retirement as an avid reader. During his last seven years, he shared the legacy of the Virginia Conference churches as part of the Wesconnett United Methodist (Jacksonville) Church family. The support of that church family was especially important in 2002 for Alice and Fred when their illnesses caused their final move together into their room at the nursing home.

  The knowledge that Fred’s painful struggle with liver cancer is over and that they will be together again in Heaven sustains Alice.