[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 7, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E183-E184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HONORING FORMER CONGRESSMAN EDWARD FORD WEBER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 7, 2023

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the following 
obituary honoring the former Congressman, Edward Ford Weber of Ohio.

                         Edward Weber Obituary

       Edward F. Weber. a Toledo area attorney for nearly 50 years 
     and a one-term Republican congressman, who in 1980 swept a 
     longtime incumbent out of office. died Monday in Hospice of 
     Northwest of Ohio, Perrysburg Township. He was 91.
       He had congestive heart failure. his son. Ford Weber. said
       Home most recently was southwest Toledo. Mr. Weber and his 
     wife. Alice, former]v lived in the Westmoreland neighborhood 
     of central Toledo.
       He returned to practice law in 1983 after his term in 
     Congress. rejoining Marshall & Melhorn as a senior partner. 
     He headed its probate and trust section before his election 
     and led the corporate-commercial section on his return.
       In 1990, he formed the law firm of Weber & Sterling with 
     Robert V. Sterling, specializing in wills, trusts, planning, 
     and administration. He retired about 18 years ago.

[[Page E184]]

       Mr. Weber on Nov. 4, 1980, achieved what a dozen Republican 
     candidates before him could not: He defeated Thomas Ludlow 
     Ashley, ending the Democrat's 26-year congressional career. 
     In the presidential race, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy 
     Carter. Lucas County results showed Mr. Weber had over 10,000 
     more votes than his party's standard bearer.
       ``He was proud of the fact that he did not ride on Reagan's 
     coattails,'' the younger Mr. Weber said.
       Two years later. Marcy Kaptur defeated Mr. Weber by a 
     margin nearly identical to that by which he was elected. Ms. 
     Kaptur has been re-elected every two years since.
       He took issue, in a Blade Readers' Forum letter, with a 
     report that he had admitted he could have done more to hold 
     the 9th District seat.
       ``For two years while I served in Congress. I worked as 
     hard as humanly possible to retain my seat short of 
     compromising my principles and voting differently on the 
     issues,'' Mr. Weber wrote to The Blade. ``That loss remains 
     the greatest personal disappointment of my life. However, I 
     do not believe that anything I could have done differently in 
     the 1982 campaign wou]d have changed the outcome of that 
     election.
       Mr. Weber's startling defeat of the seemingly invincible 
     Mr. Ashley was the product of a precision campaign plan 
     effectively executed. He began planning more than two years 
     earlier, before Mr. Ashley's November, 1978 victory. He first 
     got the notion to run while working in his yard. He was then 
     a volunteer for Mr. Ashley's Republican opponent.
       ``I felt that the country very badly needed a big change in 
     its direction--away from overregulation, away from 
     overtaxation, away from unemployment, and away from the 
     inflationary trends,'' Mr. Weber told The Blade after his 
     1980 victory.
       The younger Mr. Weber said: ``His parents instilled in him 
     a sense of community and civic duty.``
        The years since, he ``developed a lot of respect for Marcy 
     Kaptur,'' the younger Mr. Weber said. The former congressman 
     and his wife contributed to Ms. Kaptur's campaigns on several 
     occasions.
       ``He served with honor,'' Ms, Kaptur said Wednesday. ``Ed 
     and Alice Weber had a beautiful marriage and were committed 
     to family, to faith, to community. and country. It was a 
     lifetime of achievement, not just for themselves, but for our 
     community. He was a gentleman.''
       As Mr. Weber returned to the practice of law, he retained 
     his interest in the public good. He was co-chairman of a 
     successful capital improvement levy campaign for the Toledo 
     Zoo. He served as co-chairman of a campaign to find private 
     funding for a museum ship on the Maumee River, what is now 
     the S.S. Col. James M. Schoonmaker.
       He tutored children in reading at a central Toledo school. 
     He wrote the occasional letter to The Blade Readers' Forum. 
     By the early 2010s, he no longer considered himself a 
     Republican, having voted for Barack Obama twice, but also 
     said he was not a Democrat.
       He and his wife joined community members in arguing for 
     Maumee River views and green space as they publicly spoke out 
     against ProMedica's six-story parking garage in Promenade 
     Park. In 2015, Mr. Weber endorsed the mayoral candidacy of 
     another vocal opponent to the garage, Mike FerrIer, a former 
     member of Toledo City Council who was defeated in a close 
     contest for mayor in 1993.
       Edward Ford Weber was born July 26. 1931, to Elenore and 
     Ford R. Weber and grew up on Scottwood Avenue in the Old West 
     End. He was a 1949 graduate of Scott High School, where he 
     played football. He received a bachelor's degree from Denison 
     University, where he majored in mathematics and music.
       He was a 1956 graduate of Harvard law school and afterward 
     served in the Army at Fort Belvoir, Va., assigned to the 
     judge advocate as an attorney in the legal assistance office. 
     He began his legal career at the firm then known as Marshall, 
     Melhorn, Bloch & Belt.
       When Craig Frederickson was hired by the firm in 1975. Mr. 
     Weber became his mentor and managing partner.
       ``I was so lucky,'' Mr. Frederickson said. ``I have to say 
     he was probably one of the most remarkable individuals I've 
     ever known--his integrity, his ethics, his brilliance, and 
     his ability to handle and teach a young attorney with 
     patience. It was so impressive. His dealing with clients--he 
     was honest and truthful. He actually cared.''
       George Glasser, a retired judge of the Ohio 6th District 
     Court of Appeals. said: ``He was an individual who had the 
     courage of his convictions and stood for integrity and 
     everything good.''
       From 1967-79, Mr. Weber taught trusts and estates at the 
     University of Toledo law school.
       He was a life member of what is now Ashland Church, from 
     its historic home in central Toledo through its relocation 
     more than 15 years ago to Oregon. He had been a trustee of 
     the YMCA of Greater Toledo; the Toledo Museum of Art; the Red 
     Cross in Toledo; the Clement O. Miniger Memorial Foundation; 
     the Landman-Goldman Foundation, and the University of Chicago 
     Divinity School.
       He was a former district Boy Scouts chairman and was a 
     scoutmaster for 13 years of a central Toledo troop.
       Music was a favorite avocation. When he entered Denison, he 
     took the advice of his mother--who oversaw many entertainment 
     programs at their church--and enrolled in a course in 
     harmony, along with prelaw studies.
       After law school, he sang in the church choir and composed 
     prayer responses and organ music. Mr. Weber in 1977, directed 
     a performance of a musical he composed, ``One Solitary Life, 
     `` based on the life of Jesus. He dedicated the work to his 
     mother. He also composed the processional march for his 
     daughter Mary's wedding.
       He played clarinet in the Maumee Community Band and played 
     piano and trombone.
       He also enjoyed hiking and backpacking out west and sailing 
     the Great Lakes.
       Surviving are his wife, the former Alice Hammerstrom, whom 
     he married March 30. 1957; daughters Elenore Weber and Mary 
     Due; son, Ford Weber; six grandchildren, and a great-
     granddaughter.
       Family and friends will be greeted from noon-7 p.m. March 
     24 at Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township. Services will 
     be private.
       The family suggests tributes to the Toledo Museum of Art or 
     the Toledo Public Schools Foundation.
       Published by The Blade on Mar. 2, 2023.

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