Edward Lloyd Rice, 1933-2017

Edward Lloyd Rice, PhD, JD, age 84, of Worthington, Ohio, slipped away on the evening of December 27, 2017 at home, after having welcomed the birth of his newest grandson earlier that afternoon. It was the gentlest of passing after more than a decade gallantly fighting Parkinson’s, a traumatic brain injury from a serious fall ten years before and additional health concerns. He wished to remain home during his final years and with the help of aids, support staff and finally hospice programs, we made that possible for him. Ed always said you are shaped by your family, who you came from and from events during your time on earth. He came from pioneering stock. His mother’s people settled western Virginia on Revolutionary War land grants. They were educated people, abolitionist Methodist Circuit-riding preachers, teachers and they read for the law. They served in the West Virginia Constitutional Convention and later in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Their wives and daughters were tough, determined and as resilient as the husbands and sons. His father’s people settled south-western Ohio. They were farmers, blacksmiths and bankers. Their wives were Quaker ladies who even in the 1800s, believed passionately in a woman’s right to vote and to practice family planning. Ed was born in Charleston, West Virginia July 28, 1933, a fourth and much younger child, in the middle of the Great Depression, just ten months after his grandfather Judge Meredith Wellington Ryan died. His grandmother Margaret Harper Ryan survived and later lived with Ed’s family. Ed’s paternal grandparents, George Thomas Rice and Alice Freelove Vaughan Rice had both passed on before his birth, in Lewisburg, Ohio. Ed’s parents, Vaughan Stacy Rice and Margaret Sue Ryan Rice were busy running the family business, Virginia Welding, in downtown Charleston and keeping the extended family housed, clothed and fed during the Depression. His older brother William Adam Rice was finishing high school, college and had joined the Navy as WWII had started, so the day to day “raising” of Ed fell to his older sisters Mary Catherine and Joan Elizabeth. The three of them formed a strong bond that lasted their whole lives. Ed’s parents are long departed. So is his brother William Adam Rice and his wife Shirley, his sister Joan Elizabeth Rice Lewis and her husband Charles Lewis and his sister Mary Catherine Rice McCormick and her husband James McCormick, but their seven children and their spouses, most of their grandchildren and their spouses, and great grandchildren survive, scattered across the eastern US from Florida to Boston and back to West Virginia. On December 5, 1967, Ed married Ellen Pollard of Akron, Ohio. They were married almost ten years when she died very unexpectedly. There were no children; her parents and her brother Tom have also passed on. We just celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary this last month. Later, after her passing, he married again to Julie Paynter Weatherington-Rice who survives him. It was an “arranged marriage”, carefully planned by two Jewish cousins from Bexley, Gloria Ziskind White and Jerilyn Lazear Wolman, who loved them both and knew they would fit. They had three children, Adam Augustus Paynter Rice in 1980, James Edward Arthur Rice in 1983 who did not survive long, and Susan Alice Rice in 1984. Coming later in his life, unexpectedly, his children brought him great joy. Adam was born on Ed’s 47th birthday, Susan after he turned 51. Adam is married to Jamie Addis Rice. They live in Worthington, Ohio with their two young sons, Allan Edward Rice and Calvin Thomas Rice. Susan lives in the family home in Worthington, having served as one of her father’s two primary care givers for the last decade. Julie’s mother, two sisters, their husbands and most of their children, spouses and grandchildren also survive. In the fall of 1951, with a freshly minted diploma from Stonewall Jackson High School in Charleston, a white dinner jacket, a tux and instructions to replace his grandfather Judge Ryan, Ed embarked on a lifetime of higher education. His first stop was West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia where he pledged a fraternity, obtained a BA in History and decided not to become the family attorney. He went back to working at Virginia Welding, now run by his older brother Bill after their father’s passing. He had begun working there with his father at age ten on Saturdays and summers. It was a stopgap arrangement until he decided what to do next, but it did include a summer of training at the Hobart School of Welding (now Hobart Institute of Welding Technology) in Troy, Ohio. He soon enrolled at Morris Harvey College (now University of Charleston) where he obtained a double Bachelor’s degree in English and Education. Upon graduation, he became a teacher in the Kanawha County School System, teaching English and remedial reading to the children of coal miners. They rode the coal trains out of the hollers in the morning to come to school and road them back in the evening to go home. It was an exposure to poverty that Ed had never experienced, even in the depths of the Depression and it made a marked impact on him that stayed with him the rest of his life. By 1959, the hereditary ADHD and depression that had plagued him all of his life, but was undiagnosed and untreated, began to take a serious toll. At the recommendation of doctors in Charleston, his family brought him to Worthington to Harding Hospital where George Harding III found a way to treat and stabilize him, even though no one would have a definitive diagnosis for many decades. Ed became the poster child for successful management of adult ADHD. He quickly found work with the City of Columbus Department of Development managing properties for the City’s major Urban Renewal projects, Market-Mohawk, now the Grant Hospital area, Dennison-Park Place, now the Westminster-Thurber area, and the West Lane Ave. project that became The Ohio State University’s North dorms. Being bored and single, living and working in Neilwood Gables next to the University, he began taking graduate classes in History and City and Regional Planning at OSU on his lunch breaks and in the evenings, obtaining an MA in History and beginning a PhD. He always said that at $50.00 a quarter, it was cheaper entertainment than going to movies. Eventually the History Department hired him as an Instructor and he continued to teach on main campus and later at the Mansfield Branch. His Master’s thesis was on John Calvin and the development of the Protestant movement. His doctoral research was conducted in Nuremburg, Germany in the archives in 1968, right after he married Ellen, who spoke excellent modern German, where he studied the transition of the care of the “sick-poor” from the church to the newly formed City-States of Germany in the 1520s-30s. This is the beginning of the recognition of governmental responsibility to care for the less fortunate of us. When John Gilligan became Governor of Ohio (1971-1975), Ed left teaching at the Mansfield Campus of OSU and joined a Task Force headed by Attorney Jon Cope that was charged with creating an Occupational Safety and Health program for State employees, drafting the supporting Ohio Revised Code and Ohio Administrative Code. Their efforts continued until James Rhoades was re-elected and failed to continue funding the program, moving Ohio back into the Federal Enforcement Program. Ed moved next to the Franklin County Welfare Department where he worked in a section charged with insuring that the County met Ohio State and Federal program standards. He was working there when his first wife Ellen died. After her death, he returned to OSU part time to study computer science and programing languages, marrying his second wife Julie and moving to Worthington during this interval. He remained with the County until he was hired, in the summer of 1981, by the Ohio Department of Mental Health in the computer section where he became part of the team that computerized all the mental health records of all the mental health providers in the State of Ohio. As an experienced teacher, he was able to work with the staffs of doctor’s offices and the State Mental Health Hospitals, helping them to learn the new technology for record keeping. He continued with the Department of Mental Health until he retired at 75, in 2008, making this his longest career, in a field for which he never obtained a degree. But his education was not complete. In 1988, after his mother passed, Ed enrolled at Capitol Law School at night, eventually graduating with his JD. While he never formally practiced the law, he was a huge help to his wife Julie who more and more found herself in courtrooms all over Ohio providing expert testimony on water and environmental issues. After completing Law School, he became more involved in his children’s education, continuing his studies on the workings of the mind, how people learn and later the workings of the brain and genetics. Having finally learned about Adult ADHD, he joined with Jan Arthur, a dear friend, who organized and led the Adult ADHD support group of northern Franklin County at All Saints Lutheran Church here in Worthington. Ed was always the consummate Chief of Staff. He was Leo to Jed Bartlet’s president, keeping everything working in the background and offering the very best advice. Ed remained active until his health began to fail. But there was one field still to explore. A few years before retirement, he began to study the field of Physics, becoming fascinated with the concept of String Theory. Those studies cropped up later in humorous ways as his mental state and health continued to decline. Following in the footsteps of the scientist-physician-philosopher Jean-Paul Marat, Ed did his best thinking and writing in the bath, a red board propped across the tub piled high with books, notepads, pens, pencils and markers. He leaves behind a working library of thousands and thousands of well used, underlined and occasionally waterlogged reference books. Carole King sings “When my soul was in the lost-and-found, you came along to claim it”. Ed simply took care of everyone. He especially loved children, babies and animals. At any family gathering, he would be off in a comfortable chair, a little one on his arm or lap and a book in the other hand. He could wiggle his ears, write with his toes and tell the best stories. In his last years, his loyal cat, Maya, was his constant companion. At her passing, Maggie and Nigel took over until the end. He loved all music, from classical to mountain. We spent the last week steeped in old Christmas hymns, the BBC Christmas Eve services from King’s College, Cambridge, the Christmas Morning service from the National Cathedral in Washington, DC and services from the Cathedral in Cologne, Germany. He passed away to Joan Baez, John Denver, Judy Collins and Pete Seeger, among others. Ed literally was a dessert first person, when we traveled, he had dessert first, but he also tried to keep a positive attitude in life. He insisted in remaining current on State, National and World affairs. He read the Columbus Dispatch and the New York Times every day for different viewpoints. Each evening began with WOSU’s PBS NewsHour and the Nightly Business News before watching whatever else they offered. He believed strongly in Public Broadcasting saying that any network publically funded could not afford to be biased. He also believed passionately in the citizen’s responsibility to vote. From the time he turned 21 until last November, he voted in every single election he could, even the smallest primary elections. He spent weeks and months reviewing the credentials of each candidate. He often voted a split ticket but said all things equal, vote for the woman. They had to work harder to get on the ballot. Ed joined St. John’s Episcopal Church in Worthington when he moved here in 1959 and never moved his membership. In his final years while he could still travel, he deeply enjoyed attending the monthly evening Celtic Services. He held life memberships in the West Virginia University and The Ohio State University Alumni Associations. He was a member of the OSU Faculty Club. He was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at WVU. A great believer in equal rights for all, he was a proud card carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, where over the years he held positions on both the local and State boards, and of Planned Parenthood. He also supported the American Friends Service Committee and the Ohio Environmental Council. He held memberships in the Preble County (Ohio) Historical Society where he still has family, the Worthington Historical Society and the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington. Ed was only able to remain at home because of his family’s commitment and additional medical support, especially with the help of his beloved aids; Mican, Jessica, Shana, Jenn, Chris, Michelle and Jamie and during the last months, the combined efforts of Hospice of Central Ohio who provided a whole team of support. While some of the earlier arrangements left something to be desired, Hospice of Central Ohio really came though the last few months as conditions degraded. The family is extremely grateful for all they did. In light of new babies, bitter cold, spread out family and dear friends all over the US, being just after the holidays, the immediate family has chosen to forgo a funeral at this time and instead focus on a celebration of Ed’s life and a reunion of his friends and family here in Worthington. We are planning on a July gathering around the time of his 85th birthday and will provide additional information as we move closer to the date. Contributions may be made in Ed’s memory to the Ohio Environmental Council, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the American Friends Service Committee, your local PBS station, Hospice of Central Ohio or another non-profit hospice in your own community. We cannot stress how important the works of these organizations are. Arrangements by Rutherford-Corbin Funeral Home, 515 High Street, Worthington, Ohio 43085 and the Walnut Grove and Flint Union Cemeteries, 5561 Milton Ave., Worthington, Ohio 43085.