Business Journalist, WWII Vet, Eucharistic Minister
Orleans, MA—Edward J. Mooney, 88, died on Thursday, April 5, surrounded by loving family. He was best known locally as the Voice of the Orleans Cardinals (Cape Cod Baseball League), whose home games he announced for 18 years.
During World War II, as a motor pool dispatcher in the European Theater of Operations, then-Corporal Mooney was responsible for dispatching, routing, and column control of small convoy vehicles with the 3626th Quartermasters’ Trucking Company (Easy Company, also known as the Red Ball Express).
During his professional career, Mr. Mooney held positions in sales with Gerber Baby Foods, in marketing with Compton Advertising, as grocery merchandising manager at LIFE Magazine, and as publisher of Chain Store Age magazine. In 1966, as founder of the Ed Mooney Co., Inc., he began to write and publish a family of marketing newsletters for the US supermarket industry. His first book, From the Buyer’s Side, dealt with the buyer-seller interface of supermarketing.
A noted speaker on nationwide food industry programs, Mr. Mooney was a visiting lecturer on food distribution at Cornell University and a director of the Chicago-based food brokerage company, Sales Force Companies, Inc. He received an honorary Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982 from the mythical University of Hard Knocks, a division of Alderson-Broaddus College, Philippi, WV. At his 1986 retirement dinner, Mr. Mooney was presented with the Food Marketing Institute’s “You Made a Difference” special recognition award for his “dedication to furthering constructive dialogue throughout the entire food industry.”
In 2004, Mr. Mooney received the Cape Cod Baseball League’s Fred Ebbett Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the man who pioneered the use of wooden bats in amateur baseball.
In 1990 and 2005, Mr. Mooney published the first and second editions of his second book, Too Far Back To Get Shot At, a seriocomic memoir of his wartime experiences, one chapter of which appears in Tom Brokaw’s book, An Album of Memories.
Until recent years, Mr. Mooney was a daily communicant and Eucharistic minister at St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church in Orleans, MA.
Mr. Mooney was predeceased by his wife of 63 years, Jeannine (Shoens) Mooney, in February 2011. He is survived by five daughters: Jeannine (John) Hopka, Prosperity SC; Christine (Richard) Lukesh, W. Milford, NJ; Kelly (John) Oppelaar, Orleans, MA; Kerry (Dana) Deschamps, Georgia, VT; Mary Jo (Anthony) Parris, Orleans, MA; three sons: Ted (Maria) Mooney, Tucson AZ; Kevin (Catherine) Mooney, Scottsdale, AZ; and Timothy (Caitlin) Mooney, Oak Park, IL; one sister: Irene Keil, Hawaii;18 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.
A memorial Mass will be celebrated at St. Joan of Arc Church on Canal Road in Orleans on Wednesday, April 11, 10 a.m. Friends may call on Tuesday, April 10, 5 to 7 p.m., at Nickerson Funeral Home, 77 Eldredge Park Way, in Orleans.
In his memory, Mr. Mooney’s family asks that friends extend a kind gesture to someone in need.
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