Deb Shuman
I didn't know Mr. Lewis for very long, but in the short time that I did know him, I grew to love and respect him. In some ways I felt closer to him than I ever did to my own father.
What always impressed me most about Ed was how he was his own man, for good or bad. I had the privilege of sitting with him one afternoon while he regaled me with stories from his life. As a young man, he spent much of his time on his grandfather's farm in North Carolina. He told me that his grandfather, known as Bro' Walter in those parts, was widely respected, and his advice was often sought. When you came to consult Bro Walter, he might ask you to come up onto the porch to sit with him, or he might speak to you while you stood on the ground below him. If he invited you up, that meant that he thought well of you. And in the early 1900s in North Carolina, some of the people he invited up on his porch were white, and some were black. It may not have always gone over well with many of his neighbors, but he took people for who they were and what they did. Nothing else mattered.
Bro' Walter passed those values on to his grandson. Ed told me about how, when he was a foreman in the position of hiring and promoting staff, he would do so based on the work that his people did. In the face of dressings-down from his superiors, he continued to do what was fair and promote those who deserved it, black or white. He had his own internal moral compass that couldn't be swayed by external pressure. And he passed on this inner sense of right to his children and his grandchildren.
Ed, we could use more men like you in the world today. Rest in peace, dear Pop. We will always love you, and we'll continue to keep your values alive in the world.