Edward Randolph Welles ’28

ED WELLES died quietly during an afternoon nap Apr. 15, 1991, at his home in Kansas City. In 1950 he became the Episcopal bishop of West Missouri. Before retiring in 1972, he had led the diocese to more than double its number of communicants, and 12 new congregations had been established. At the same time he had become known as a leader in ecumenical cooperation, in overcoming racial discrimination in the city, and in pioneering in the ordination of women to the ministry in the Episcopal Church.

We who at college were used to seeing Ed out in front of the distance races in track and crosscountry are not surprised. Ed went to Kent School. At Princeton, in addition to being a runner, he was active in the Philadelphian Society, majored in English, and was a member of Arbor Inn.

Ed combined his graduate work and preparation for the ministry at Oxford, England, and at General Theological Seminary in N.Y. He served as pastor in Woodbridge, NJ., as chaplain at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., as dean of All Saints Cathedral in Albany, N.Y., as pastor in Alexandria, Va. (where F.D.R. and Winston Churchill once attended a service, sitting together in the George Washington pew), and as dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in Buffalo, N.Y.

Ed married Catharine Van Alstyne June 2, 1931. After her death in 1983, he was married to Martha Borland for only a few months in 1984 before she died. He then married Ferne Malcolm Nov. 24, 1984. She survives him, as do four children, Rev. Katrina Swanson, Harriet Foresman, Edward 111, and Peter. Ed's classmates will miss one who was a champion, as a miler, as a minister, and as a man.

The Class of l928