Edward James Meredith

Edward James Meredith, age 77, passed away due to natural causes from declining

health on Saturday morning, February 5th at the Orchard Valley Healthcare and

Rehabilitation Center in Palisade, Colorado. He was interred at the Grand Junction

Municipal Cemetery (Orchard Park).

Born on New Year’s Eve, 1944, in Irvington, New Jersey, while his father was

overseas fighting as an Army soldier in the Battle of the Bulge, Ed later inherited his

dad’s love of freedom, peace and tolerance. His mother, Alice Elizabeth Mayer-Oakes

Meredith was a German language scholar and a teacher. When Ed’s father, Henry

Morgan Meredith, returned from WWII, he resumed his career as a cowboy, working

on ranches in southeast Arizona, where Ed acquired a brother, Henry Jr. Ed’s father

established his own Lazy GI ranch in Reserve, New Mexico, where Ed’s sister, Alice

Margaret, was born. The Meredith family then moved to Meeker, Colorado, but soon

relocated to Grand Junction, where Ed spent most of his life.

Ed’s interests developed around influences from his mom being an elementary teacher

and from his father also being a school bus driver. Both parents were amateur

musicians as well. His father played the cornet, a skill he passed on to his younger son,

Henry Jr. Eddie took up the clarinet, and Alice became a flutist. All three siblings

enjoyed the band programs in their junior and senior high schools and participated in

several summer band camps. His mom played cello in the Grand Junction Civic

Symphony for a while. For a single family to have 100% participation in music, both

instrumental and vocal, was noteworthy. They enjoyed singing together on holiday

gatherings, road trips, and other occasions.

A graduate of Mesa Junior College and Gunnison State College, Ed was not only a fine

clarinetist, but he had a wonderful singing voice and a superb ear for harmony and

melodic structure. He was a soloist and chorister for a time at First Congregational

Church and his wide range allowed him to sing either as tenor or bass.

Edward delighted in the popular music of his youth and knew much classic rock music

by heart. Especially in more recent times, he would serenade friends with various hits

and call upon his experience as a school music teacher in Ouray and Ridgway to

illuminate the history of various pop groups and their individual singers while also

providing an analysis of their music and lyrics. He was particularly proud of his ABBA

recordings and he could burst into songs by any number of artists at the drop of a hat.

Notable achievements during his school days included earning the rank of Eagle Scout

in Troop 56, being voted “Most Talented” by his Central High School graduating class

of 1963, and working as a assistant to his uncle, Dr. Wm. J. Mayer-Oakes, on an

archeological project in Manitoba. His later career paths led him to various jobs

including delivery driver and Holiday Inn staff. One of his hobbies was the study of

classic automobiles, and he could recite the specs for many makes and models of

specific years. This kind of prodigious memory for detail served him well in social

interactions where he had no difficulty carrying on lengthy conversations on many

topics.

Beyond his engaging knowledge and intelligence, Ed will be remembered for his

cheerful and friendly disposition, and subtle sense of humor. He is survived by his

brother and sister, and by Alice’s two children, Pawel Ciaston and Beata Meredith,

both of whom are also artistic. He will be missed by his family and by several friends,

all of whom were frustrated by pandemic restrictions and thus were not able to visit

with him in the last several months. As one of Ed’s former next door neighbors

poignantly put it, “I'm sad that Ed wasn't able to share one last song.”