The Rev. Edgar “Ed” Peara

The Rev. Edgar “Ed” Peara, decorated WW II veteran, long-time parish minister, pro-choice counselor, tireless pacifist, devoted father, and energetic volunteer in retirement to his local community died suddenly at age 92 while cleaning up brush in his yard in Eugene, Oregon, on 22 February 2014.

Edgar Peara’s activism for peace, growing out of a fundamental gentleness and love for the good that he found in people, was both expressed in and shaped by his military service. “The war made me a pacifist,” he once said — but clearly the inclination was already in his bones as he found ways of acting as a soldier for peace in the midst of war. “When I was asked to remove the resistance in Algeria, rather than expecting the people to resist, I took off my helmet, left my pistol behind, told the men to follow me and not to fire unless fired on. Then I went house to house, knocked on doors and said, ‘We come in peace. We are here only to have you surrender arms and then we will move on.’ By coming in peace, no one resisted us. No one gave us any trouble and we collected so many arms we could hardly carry them all.”

Mr. Peara was one of only a few to serve in three theaters of World War II — Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. As a lieutenant, combat engineer, and company adjutant, he led a unit specializing in supporting large amphibious invasions, clearing the way for the infantry and keeping the Army on the move. After participating in the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy, he was moved to the southwest coast of England to help with D-day readiness, and he landed at Utah Beach on 6 June 1944. Early that morning, finding a medical aid station under intense fire, he scrambled to find a more protected area. Then, dodging bullets and shells, he ran back to help the wounded to safety. Transferred later to the Pacific, his next job would have been preparing the way for a ground assault on Honshu, had the war not been ended by the atomic bomb. Instead he was assigned to disarm Japanese troops in Korea and help create a new government. He recalled proudly “that I was always able to do whatever my duties required without ever harming the forces we faced.”

More than 65 years later, his service earned him France’s highest military honor, the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur. Friends and family packed Eugene’s City Council Chambers on 14 April 2011 to hear French Deputy Consul, Mme. Corinne Pereira, say: “More than 60 years ago, you rescued people you didn’t even know. But you can be sure that those people… have not forgotten. Their children and grandchildren — I am one of them — have not forgotten and will never forget.” Afterwards, Ed often enjoyed announcing that “I am now the Rev. Sir Edgar Peara.” His award was also recognized in the Congressional Record by Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden, who wrote, as part of a much longer laudatory entry:

As an Oregonian, I could not be more proud of Edgar, his wonderful story, and his life’s work. He truly is a hero and embodies the best of our State. As our Nation continues to struggle in conflicts overseas, Edgar serves as a testament to the belief that sometimes restraint is as powerful as force in times of war.

In the early years of his parish ministry, prior to the Roe v. Wade decision, abortion rights counseling was a major focus of Ed’s activism. Widowed with four young sons in 1964, he recalled learning at first hand “of the dedication, work, love and unselfishness that caring for children required. I felt strongly that no woman should ever have to be a parent unless she chose to do so.” In the Chicago area he became acquainted with the Rev. Spencer Parsons, Dean of the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, and learned of his connections to competent providers of compassionate but illegal assistance in reproductive choice, whose services he used in his ministry to women students. “I told him I would recruit clergy to serve, if he would supply the providers.” Beginning with 16 ministers and 2 rabbis to become counselors to women seeking abortions, the group eventually grew to 50 clergy counselors. Ed recalled this work with satisfaction and pride:

For four years our Chicago Area Clergy Counseling Service for Problem (i.e., unwanted) Pregnancies provided tens of thousands of illegal, but safe abortions. I personally helped 700 women during those years. We had daily newspaper ads inviting women to use our services. My work was described in a NBC TV interview and in a Chicago Daily News Article. The law never bothered us. Police would bring their wives and women friends to us.

Edgar Child Westling was born in Moline, Illinois, 22 July 1921 to A. Conrad Westling and Grace Child. After his mother’s subsequent marriage to A. T. Peara, Ed took “Peara” as his own last name. Resuming studies after the war, he was graduated in 1947 from Principia College (a Christian Science school in Elsah, Illinois) and worked as a registered Christian Science practitioner for eleven years, including service in military chaplaincy at the US Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois, during the Korean conflict.

Ever seeking to broaden his understanding, Ed was attracted to Ernest Holmes, Thomas Troward, and other writers in the “New Thought” movement, and began using their metaphysical therapy in his practice, eventually finding Christian Science “too rigid and close-ended.” As he searched for a more open religious body in the late 1950s, he encountered the Unitarian advertisement: “You are a Unitarian without knowing it, if you believe that truth unfolds forever.” Finding and pursuing his new calling with astounding determination and energy, Ed recalled his seminary years:

I took the plunge in spite of having a wife, two sons and a job at the Chicago YMCA as an academic executive. I applied to Meadville/Lombard, was accepted and given a full scholarship. I quit my job and moved my wife and sons, Chris and Jon, to Woodlawn, and began the program. My third son, Tim, was born the first night of my classes at M/L, Oct. 1, 1960. The U. of Chicago’s policy of letting students advance as rapidly as they met degree requirements suited me. I accelerated and received my degree in June 1962, twenty months after I started. During that time at M/L, I also preached every Sunday, taught four courses a term in Chicago’s YMCA night school and had a therapy practice.

Ordained in 1963, the Rev. Mr. Peara was first called to a yoked ministry in Vermont, with a 9 a.m. service at the Universalist Church in Chester Depot and an 11 a.m. service at the UU Church of Springfield. His fourth son Andy was born there in 1964, and just six weeks later his wife died, leaving him the single father of four little boys. Learning that his oldest son’s first-grade class began with daily Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer, Ed took his objections successively to the teacher, the principal, the local and state boards of education, and finally to the attorney general, resulting in a statewide cessation of the practice in public schools. Sadly, Ed’s parishioners were unhappy with him when their conservative neighbors chided them about their “irreligious minister,” and his lobbying against America’s growing Vietnam involvement earned him an “unpatriotic” reputation. Moving to the more liberal Chicago area, the Rev. Mr. Peara served successively the Lake Shore Unitarian Society of Wilmette (1967-76), the New Trier Unitarian Society of Wilmette (1977-87), and the UU Community Church of Park Forest (1987-97), whence he retired as Minister Emeritus. At the Seattle UUA GA in 1970, Ed met Phyllis Sorensen, an “adorable” lay delegate from Omaha, herself a single parent of four children. A month later they were married.

During all his ministries, Edgar Peara was active in community, collegial, and UUA service. He was president of both the New Hampshire/Vermont and the Central Midwest Districts; social action consultant to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; and president of the UUMA’s Chicago Area Liberal Ministers’ Group. In addition to four years as an abortion counselor for the Chicago Area Clergy Counseling Service, he founded the North Shore Peace Initiative in Illinois, and served on human relations commissions in both Wilmette and Park Forest.

The astounding energy of Mr. Peara’s commitments never flagged in retirement. After an interim ministry in Aukland, New Zealand, in 2000, Ed and Phyllis moved to Eugene, Oregon, to live near his youngest son. Over the years there, through his 80s and into his 90s, Ed was active in no less than forty-two volunteer organizations and activities, including planting trees, delivering Meals on Wheels, park and native plant nursery work, construction, feeding the poor, work for liberal politics, Veterans for Peace, and many more. Besides occasional preaching at the Eugene UU Church, he continued a therapy and counseling practice, wrote regularly for “Heart to Heart,” a religious column in the local newspaper, and was a frequent officiant for weddings and memorials. In March 2012 the local Red Cross Chapter gave him an “Everyday Hero” medal for being “Senior Compassion Hero.”

His son, Tim, remembers his father for valuing family, and collecting and telling jokes. He describes his father as a “kind and generous man,” who was “very concerned about the community in which he lived.”

Edgar Peara is survived by sons, Chris, Jon, Tim, and Andy Peara, stepchildren Portia Blackman, Allan Ball, Leah Pahlmeyer, and Sarah Taylor, ten grandchildren, two great grandchildren, two nieces, a nephew, and a cousin. A Celebration of Life was held on 17 May 2014 at the UU Church in Eugene, Oregon.

Memorial donations may be made to The UU Church in Eugene, or to any one of the many organizations in the Eugene area to which Ed dedicated his volunteer time in his retirement years: Unity of the Valley, Nearby Nature, The Village School, Red Cross of Lane County, Community Alliance of Lane County, Friends of Buford Park, or Friends of Hendricks Park.