[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 25, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E227-E228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO EDWARD H. ``NED'' SCHWARZ

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 25, 2004

  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, Edward H. ``Ned'' Schwarz, 74, of Lawrence, 
Boy Scout leader, veteran, businessman, father, and friend to his home 
town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, died February 1, 2004. A graduate of 
Melrose High School, he attended MIT for 2 years then enlisted in the 
U.S. Air Force and served stateside during the Korean conflict.

[[Page E228]]

He completed his degree in electrical engineering from Merrimack 
College after his time in the Air Force and went on to work at the 
former Western Electric in North Andover as an electrical design 
engineer. After taking an early retirement he opened the Totem Pole 
Camping Store in North Andover. He was a man of faith and was a 45-year 
member of the former United Presbyterian Church of Lawrence where he 
was an ordained Elder. These are the eloquent words of Charles D. 
Boddy, Jr. who read this eulogy at the funeral:

       Daniel Webster once compared New Hampshire's Old Man of the 
     Mountains to a tradesman's sign hanging above the front door 
     of a store indicating the nature of the tradesman's trade. He 
     stated that God had hung out the Old Man of the Mountains as 
     if to say, ``here we build men.'' It is, therefore, oddly 
     fitting that we should lose Uncle Ned, another icon of the 
     mountains, within a year of the fall of the Old Man. Uncle 
     Ned was himself, a builder of men.
       Monday nights, 7-9 p.m., first three Mondays of the month, 
     September to June. For more than 40 years, if you were a boy 
     growing up on Prospect Hill in Lawrence, these nights were 
     reserved. Fathers in the neighborhood packed up their young 
     sons and brought them to Uncle Ned who spent these hours 
     nurturing the boys' resourcefulness and self-reliance through 
     the scouting program. I am fortunate to have been one of 
     those boys, and my words speak for all of us.
       I well remember sitting with him, as a boy, as he taught me 
     my knots. His thick fingers routinely tracing the course of 
     rope as they had done so many times with so many other scouts 
     before me. The process of making the knot was so ingrained in 
     him from years of practice, rehearsal, and repetition. Later, 
     as a young scout leader I watched again as he taught another 
     boy the lesson, now his fingers slightly gnarled by the faint 
     touch of arthritis that, alone, betrayed his age. As I 
     watched him teach, year after year, I myself learned that his 
     lesson was not one of knots, but one of life. By patiently 
     guiding each scout, he let him know that he mattered, he was 
     important. By teaching the simple lessons, he instructed 
     us that the greatest lesson was personal contact: that a 
     communion of souls could bridge the greatest of 
     differences. Hence, you will see among his scouts and 
     admirers members of every creed and race, followers of 
     every cause, the elite and powerful, as well as the simple 
     and humble. Uncle Ned related to us all. He effortlessly 
     collected friends along his journey.
       He was a mentor to all the boys who passed through his 
     scout troop, growing with them, changing his methods as the 
     times changed, but always giving generously of his time and 
     himself. He was a man who saw solutions not problems, and saw 
     friends, never enemies. In the highly political climate of 
     his home City, he followed the path to improve us through 
     unity and friendship, through our commonality, and avoided 
     the thorny path of criticism and divisiveness.
       Without a doubt, Uncle Ned has returned to the camp in the 
     highest summit from which he started his 74 year hike. He 
     rests at a camp made safe by the Great Scoutmaster in the 
     Heavens. Boss Buthmann, Troop 2's first scoutmaster, along 
     with all of Troop 2's finest, who have passed before, are at 
     his side. He has marked his final trail with the scout 
     orienteer's sign of a dot within a circle indicating ``Gone 
     home.'' There he sits, and there he waits, tending a roaring 
     fire. Uncle Ned, the faithful Scoutmaster will guide and 
     guard his troop until the last of us is safe at home by his 
     side.

  Ned Schwarz was very proud of Charlie Boddy, the young man who 
delivered the eulogy at his memorial service, as he was of all his 
scouts. Charlie went on to public service following Ned's example of 
public service and civic duty becoming City Solicitor for Lawrence, 
Massachusetts.
  Besides spending countless hours with his beloved scouts, Ned worked 
tirelessly to revitalize his neighborhood and his hometown. Ned led 
graffiti removal efforts, park clean-ups and helped to organize the 
annual National Night Out celebration for his Prospect Hill 
neighborhood. He belonged to numerous civic organizations including the 
Lawrence Historical Commission, the Lawrence Citizens Police Academy 
Alumni Association, and the Prospect Hill Back Bay Neighborhood 
Association, in which he served in various leadership positions over 
the years along with his dear friend, Jim Ross. The two of them took 
great pride in constructing the Neighborhood Association's parade 
floats which won numerous awards.
  Edward H. ``Ned'' Schwarz will be remembered by his loving wife 
Gloria, his wife of 50 years; sons Edward R. and his wife Julie of 
Salem, N.H., and Erich H. and his wife Amy of Lawrence; daughters Lynn 
and her husband Edward McNamara of Merrimack, N.H., and Beverly and her 
husband John Cody of Haverhill; grandchildren John, Christopher and 
Catherine McNamara, Emily Schwarz, Tom and Dan Cody and Andrew and Nysa 
Schwarz; sisters Dorothy Gretchen Perkins and Hope Cox of Maine; and 
several nieces and nephews; a grateful City and thousands of young men 
whose lives he touched.

                          ____________________