Edward Lee Erath

Ed had a passionate love affair with flying. As a private pilot, he flew over 2,500 hours in 40 years in his Cessna. After flying the first 30 years one day he said “I’m tired of flying straight and level, let’s do something crazy” and he did. He started flying aerobatics and took lessons on upset recovery. This led him to fly several hours in a WWII P51 Mustang, a Stearman biplane, a Czechoslovakian jet and even learned to water land in a seaplane.

He was also passionate about boats, trains, music, reading, history and continually learning new things. Using his lathe machine, a vertical milling machine and a metal band saw, he could make almost anything out of metal and even built his sand car from scratch. Ed was truly more interesting than the beer commercial “Most interesting man in the world”!

Ed enjoyed many years of riding in the sand dunes of Dumont and Glamis, snow skiing in Colorado and jet skiing in Lake Havasu. He loved traveling in the RV to the national parks, boating off the Hawaiian volcano as the lava flowed into the ocean and even hot air ballooned over the Serengeti.

Ed is survived by Linda Potts Erath, his wife and partner of 25 years, nephew Shawn Storts, cousin Pat Pace and his sweet dogs Jack and Jill. Many of Ed’s adventures included his pals Darrel, Zeke, Jim and Richard. We all miss him more than words can say.

Ed was born in Chicago to Edward H Erath and Merry Lee La Poda. He grew up playing and snorkeling in the Los Angeles area. He graduated from UCLA and worked in the hardware and software computer industry for Honeywell, Tandem and Oracle. After L.A., Ed lived in Boulder, Colorado and the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Las Vegas where he retired.

A Celebration of a Life Well Lived will be announced for late January - early February and will be at 5 o’clock somewhere.

We little knew that morning,

God was going to call your name,

In life we loved you dearly,

In death we do the same.

It broke our hearts to lose you,

You did not go alone.

For part of us went with you,

The day God called you home.

You left us beautiful memories,

Your love is still our guide,

And though we cannot see you,

You are always by our side.

Our family chain is broken,

And nothing seems the same,

But as God calls us one by one,

The chain will link again.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.palmcheyenne.com for the Erath family.