Ezra Edgar Carr passed away at his home on Wednesday, June 11, 2014.
Ed was born in Clayton, Mo., in 1922; he was the youngest of eight children, five of whom survived childhood. As a child, he was so shy he was once sent to the Missouri School for the Deaf under the mistaken impression that he could neither hear nor speak. After high school, he went to work for Schroth’s filling station, and then to AT&T as a draftsman.
At age 19, Ed enlisted in the Army Air Corps in WWII and served as a gunner and an aerial engineer, flying in A20’s and C47’s. During his two tours of duty in North Africa and Italy, he was shot down twice. One of these incidents resulted in him being held in an Italian POW camp, from which he escaped. He returned to AT&T after the war with no great fondness for the way the Army treated enlisted men.
Ed was soon elected the president of the local CWA union and after a national bargaining session for the union, was quickly promoted to AT&T management where he eventually led the AT&T bargaining team on the other side of the table. His negotiating acumen and diplomacy led to Ed’s representing AT&T to the US Government in Washington, D.C. and then to telephone companies and foreign governments around the world as Director of International Operations.
The hallmark of Ed Carr was his uncanny ability to make friends everywhere, be that with the staff at the local supermarket or with dignitaries around the world.
In the 1950s, he and first wife Eileen welcomed two daughters, Maureen and Suzanne. He had already developed his lifelong love of books and music, and would walk lower Manhattan on his lunch hour, looking for out-of-print books by favorite authors HL Mencken or AJ Liebling or collecting Clancy Brothers or Bud & Travis albums. A shameless literary thief, Ed told his two little girls that he was responsible for the immortal New Yorker cartoon “Hello, I am a pelican, my beak can hold more than my bellycan.” He also invented a unique method of distributing Fig Newtons that left his cookie pile double that of either girl.
The 80s and 90s brought retirement, marriage to soulmate Judy Chicka, and the arrival of five treasured grandsons. Ed and Judy traveled extensively and rode their bicycles over northern New Jersey. In the last 15 years, Ed battled the effects of a major stroke and then blindness, but never lost his biting wit. He dealt with these challenges as best he could, fighting aphasia by writing hundreds of essays, collected at ezrasessays.com. He surely would not have survived these last years without the devoted care and advocacy of Judy.
A fierce Irishman, Ed would often recall telling his mother Lillie that he was leaving to fight in WWII and that he would be fighting alongside the (distasteful) Brits. “Well,” his mother said, “then you must do the best you can.” And so he did, his whole life.
Ed is survived by beloved wife Judy Chicka, daughters Maureen (Walter) and Suzanne (Carl) and grandsons Connor, Kevin, Andrew, William and Jack. Thanks to his many friends, doctors and health aides for their attentive care in his last years.
When Irish people take leave of each other, they often have a glass to mark the occasion. A few lines of this Celtic thought from an Irish farewell song.
“For all that I have done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall,
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all.”
-Irish Traditional
~~~
The linked essays above represent some of my favorites on the site so far. I have about two hundred and twenty others. You can find them all in a giant list of favorites here. A less-terrible way to browse these should be available soon.
Read the original obituary here.
Read Pop’s thoughts on obituaries here, including a go at his own written in 2008, which I’ll paste below for convenience with the date replaced:

Mr. E. E. Carr cashed in his chips on June 11. The chip-cashing occurred in a bawdy house in Millburn, New Jersey. His body was found by several mistresses in a palatial suite on the 20th floor, surrounded by empty champagne bottles and dishes that had held caviar and foie gras. Evidence of rampant lovemaking was everywhere. When the undertaker arrived, he discovered that $1,000 bills were sticking out of every pocket of Mr. Carr’s jacket and pants. A waiter reported that Mr. Carr had tipped him $5,000 for providing his final meal, as it turned out. Mr. Carr also said to some of his guests of the female gender that he shouldn’t drink all that champagne but in the final analysis, he said that this was the way to go. He will be terribly missed by his dozens of loving mistresses and preachers of all sects.
His estate is estimated to be worth nearly a billion dollars, which will be used to establish upscale bawdy houses in all of the major cities in New Jersey and in his native Missouri.