Edwin Dudley Hale, a long-time member of Palo Alto Friends Meeting, died in Mountain View on January 9, 2020 at the age of 82, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Ed was born on March 21, 1933, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Edwin Hale and Faith Prentice. After attending Oak Park River Forest High School, he went on to MIT, where he studied Mechanical Engineering and lettered in track (pole vault) and soccer.
After graduating, Ed started his engineering career working on the design and testing of the Mercury and Gemini modules for NASA in St. Louis. He moved to Chicago to work for the Liquid Carbonic Corporation in research and development of cryogenic technologies in food processing and recycling applications. He was a past president of the American Cryogenic Society and was considered an “icon” of the industry.
Ed and Janet Moore were married on March 30, 1963, in La Grange, Illinois. Their son David was born in 1964 in St. Louis, Missouri, and their daughter Katie in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1968. In 2000, to be closer to their children and grandchildren, Ed and Janet moved to California. They transferred their memberships to the Palo Alto Friends Meeting.
In Palo Alto, Ed and Janet were co-clerks of the Building and Grounds Committee, cheerfully organizing such tasks as painting the lines in the parking lot, painting benches in the Meeting room, monitoring the irrigation meter and hand-watering the redwoods. A butterfly-friendly buddleia bush that Ed and Janet planted by the walkway thrives to this day.
To help “unhoused persons,“ Ed and Janet were also regular supporters of Hotel de Zink, a rotating shelter for homeless people. They were responsible for moving up the opening time for the Meetinghouse, so that Hotel guests did not have to stand outside until 9pm, shivering on chilly December evenings. Palo Alto Friends remember Ed as steadfast in his commitment to Quaker values and living them fully. He was committed to social justice, serving on the board of the American Friends Service Committee in Chicago. Ed and Janet were war tax resisters and urged others to follow their examples. In budget discussions, they consistently urged greater financial support for AFSC and other Quaker organizations. When Meeting did not follow this leading, Ed and Janet largely withdrew from meeting activity in recent years. Although the separation was painful, members recognized that their actions arose from a deep commitment to our shared values.
Ed is survived by his wife Janet Hale of Mountain View; his son David Hale and daughter-in-law Laura Torres and grandchildren Jonathan and Madeline of Los Altos; his daughter Katie Hale and her partner Lia Milhoan of San Jose; and his sister Marjorie Kipper of Hoover, Alabama.
