Edward Fitzireland Grace
Edward Grace was born to Gilbert Grace and Eliza Faulkner in 1866. His father died when Edward was only nine years old. At
the time, his older brothers were much older, and his younger siblings
were very young, leaving Edward oddly in the middle. Rumor has it he ran
away and joined the circus.
Edward was a printer, journalist,
and staunch union man. He was initiated into the International
Typographers Union (ITU) in 1885 and was a member until his death. While
in Memphis, he wrote for and published the Union Journal. In 1901, he was a member of the Board of Public Works for the city of Memphis. Later in
Norfolk, VA he published the Union News. He wrote that "the common
people have been ignored."
In his spare time, Edward seems to have been quite the ladies' man. For three years (between
1917 and 1919), Edward disappears from public record. Family lore says
that Edward ran away to New Orleans with another woman. By the time he
reappears in documentation in Virginia in 1920, he is living the life of
a bachelor - moving from house to house each year and proclaiming
himself to be a widow in the 1920 census (Gert didn't die until 1947).
In
1933, Edward moved to Colorado Springs, CO where he was admitted to the
Union Printers' Home, which was built in 1892 by the ITU to care for
its members. The filthy working conditions and long hours (often 11
hours per day) of most 19th century printers left a population of
printers suffering from a variety of eye conditions and lung afflictions
such as tuberculosis. Edward died five years later in 1938 at the age
of 72 from senility and heart disease. He is listed as a widow on his
death certificate and his obituary claims he left no survivors.
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