[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 57 (Monday, May 2, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E774-E775]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN HONOR OF EDITH WILKIE EDWARDS

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. SAM FARR

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 2, 2011

  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Edith Wilkie 
Edwards. Most often known as Edie, I am honored that I have this 
opportunity to recognize such a caring, giving and loving woman.
  Edie's tireless and dedicated work towards making the world a safer 
and more humane place is remarkable. She was an activist on peace and 
arms control issues, a former congressional staff member and wife of 
former Congressman Don Edwards, (D-CA). Edie passed away in Carmel, 
California at the age of 64. She had cancer and pulmonary disease.
  Edie will forever be remembered as one of Capitol Hill's most 
talented, driven and selfless individuals. She directed Congress' 
bipartisan and bicameral Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus from 
1978 to 1995. In that role, she worked to halt the development of new 
nuclear weapons, strengthen congressional support for the United 
Nations, end funding for proxy wars in Central America and expand and 
encourage human rights around the world. Prior to directing the caucus, 
she served as chief of staff to Reps. Fortney (Pete) Stark (D-CA) from 
1975 to 1978; and Ogden R. Reid (R-NY) from 1968 to 1975.
  Additionally, Edie served as president of the Peace Through Law 
Education Fund, a spin-off of the Arms Control and Foreign Policy 
Caucus, where she co-authored two reports examining the views of key 
military leaders on peace operations. The reports, ``A Force for 
Peace'' (1999) and ``A Force for Peace and Security'' (2002), foresaw 
the increasing need for U.S. troops to participate in multi-lateral 
peace operations in failed states.
  Edie was also an active board member of the Ploughshares Fund, the 
San Francisco-based foundation that is the largest U.S. grant-making 
organization focused on peace and security issues; Council for a 
Livable World, a leading nuclear arms control lobbying organization in 
Washington; Peace-PAC, which supports arms control activists seeking 
election to the House of Representatives and the Center for 
International Policy, an organization started after the war in Vietnam 
by former diplomats and peace activists to promote human rights and 
international cooperation. She was a member of the Council on Foreign 
Relations.
  In 1981, after 11 years together, she married Rep. Edwards, the 32-
year Member of Congress from San Jose, CA, who chaired the Civil and 
Constitutional Rights Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. 
They were

[[Page E775]]

married at Martha's Vineyard in a small and beautiful ceremony.
  After they both retired from their careers on Capitol Hill in 1995, 
the Edwards decompressed by living in the village of Loumarin in 
Southern France. For more than a decade, the Edwards lived half the 
year in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California and half at Holly Point, their 
home overlooking the Chesapeake Bay in Edgewater, Maryland. They 
settled in Carmel for the last three years.
  Born in New York on October 5, 1946 to the late John and Dorothea J. 
Wilkie, Edie graduated from Concord Academy and Vassar College. Tall 
and slim and athletic, she was an avid tennis player with a forehand 
her opponents considered lethal.
  In addition to Mr. Edwards, she is survived by five stepsons; a 
sister and two brothers, Rennie Wilkie Lieber, John McNeil Wilkie and 
Peter Wilkie, and their families. She is also survived by her 
stepmother, Margot Loines Wilkie, of New York and Martha's Vineyard and 
two stepsisters, Faith Morrow Williams and Constance Morrow 
Fullenweider and their families.
  Mr. Speaker, Edith Wilkie Edwards touched many lives in her community 
and devoted her life to building a more peaceful world. It is a 
privilege and a high honor to recognize her life. She will be missed 
and I know I speak for the whole House in honoring the life of this 
dedicated and loving woman.

                          ____________________