Ed, Bill, and the Marion Story

Last Saturday, my wife Sue and I attended Ed Breen’s funeral at St. Paul's Catholic Church. The details of the service and subsequent reception at McCarthy Hall were pure Ed. Funeral mass included portions in Latin, and the use of incense that were characteristic of the liturgy that shaped his youth in Ft Dodge, Iowa.

Friends and family gathered afterward for food and conversation. Several observed that if Ed had been in attendance, he would be working the crowd, engaging each guest in conversation. I can hear his laugh over the noise at the reception.

I have known Ed since the early 1970s. Can it be over 50 years? I was a newly minted teacher, and he was a reporter, photographer, and part of the editorial staff of the Chronicle-Tribune. Our paths crossed when he was covering local migrant labor working the tomato crop in Grant County. I was a volunteer in an English tutoring program for a group associated with farm worker organizations.

That event established the sort of parallel lives that Ed and I lived ever since. He was at the paper, and I was at school. This by no means meant that we agreed on issues, great and small. I fondly recall heated discussions about politics, economics, crime, and punishment.

What we did agree on was Marion. We were outsiders in a place that was very hard to get to know. A rural village that became a boom town, only to go bust and then boom again before going bust once more. A place that gave birth to artists, musicians, authors, industrialists, and a powerhouse of athletic achievement. A city that has only reluctantly dealt with serious issues of poverty and racism.

Each of us, in our way, agreed that the history of Marion, warts and all, could provide a path forward for generations to come.

So long, Ed,

Bill

Broadcast of WBAT Marion 1400 AM “Moments inGrant County History”