Edwin Elliot McDade passed away Wednesday, May 16, 2007, at home in La Conner, Washington. He was 94

Ed was born in 1912 in Harlan, Iowa to Edwin and Mae McDade. The son of a Methodist minister, Ed graduated in 1934 from Cornell College, a small liberal-arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. During his college summers, he worked at Holiday Camp, a summer camp in Wisconsin. He enjoyed theater in school, performing as Nanki-Poo in The Mikado and Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore. After graduation, he and his friend Lane Guthrie headed west in a Model T Ford to Longview, Washington, where he landed his first job at the Columbia River Mercantile. In Longview, he met and married Delphine Graham, who would be his wife for 70 years. After their marriage in 1937 they spent the war years working together as aircraft communicators for the Civil Aeronautics Administration on an emergency airfield in Kenai, Alaska.

After the war, Ed and Delphine lived in Baker City and then Grants Pass, Oregon. They then moved to Walla Walla, Washington, where Ed worked as an air traffic controller for the CAA, and Delphine opened her first dance studio. In 1949, Ed was transferred to the newly opened Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle.

Ed, who enjoyed building things, built a home in Seahurst in 1950, designed by his friend, architect Ralph Burkhardt - a home the couple was to occupy for 53 years. Soon, Ed expanded the home to include a dance studio, and over the years he actively supported Delphine in the operation of a successful ballet school until Delphine's retirement in the early 1980s. Ed even appeared one year as the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland- one of many annual spring ballets performed at Highline High School.

Ed and Delphine loved to dance. They taught ballroom dancing from time to time over the years, saving more than one father-of-the-bride from wedding reception embarrassment.

In 1954, Ed left the CAA and began selling real estate in Seahurst for Ted Peterson Realty and Vandenberg Realty. Later he joined McPherson Realty. For a short time he and his friend Bill Noah operated McDade-Noah Realty. During those years Ed studied appraising, and from the late 1960s until his retirement he was employed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Seattle.

Ed loved boating, and there was always a boat in the family-from Longview to the Kenai River to Lake Washington. The McDades also enjoyed traveling, especially on their many Elderhostel trips.

In 2002 the McDades moved to Wesley Homes in Des Moines and in December of last year they moved to La Conner, Washington. Ed is survived by his wife, Delphine; son Scott and daughter-in-law Fran; son Sandy and daughter-in-law Chris; daughter-in-law Bonnie McDade; and six grandchildren: Garth, Cliff, Amanda, Megan, Martha, Emily; and one great-grandson, Kieran. He was preceded in death by a son, Graham Edwin McDade, and a grandson, Graham Edwin McDade, Jr.

A memorial fund has been established at Camp Orkila on Orcas Island, which is operated by Camping Services at the YMCA of Greater Seattle.