Park, Edwards 1917-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 21, 1917, in Boston, MA; died of complications following a fall February 12, 2005, in Washington, DC. Editor, journalist, and author. Park was best known as a founding editor and columnist for Smithsonian magazine. A graduate of Yale University in 1939, he became a private school teacher for several years before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1941. During World War II, he was a P-39 fighter pilot, seeing action in the Pacific theater. With the war over, he married an Australian woman and settled in his adopted country where he worked as a freelance writer for a newspaper in Melbourne. He returned to America in 1951 and took a job as a feature writer for the Boston Globe. Next, Park became deputy head of the book publishing arm of National Geographic, where he remained from 1955 until 1969. Ed Thompson, the former editor of Life, who then became head of Smithsonian, invited Park to work for him. Accepting the job of editor, Park worked for the magazine until he retired in 1982, and even after that he continue to contribute articles over the next two decades. Park was respected for building a positive relationship between the magazine staff and the Smithsonian's museum curators, as well as for his knowledge of subjects ranging from history to aviation and sailing. His intelligence and writing skills made his regular column, "Around the Mall and Beyond," a popular feature of the periodical. Park was also the author of several books, including Treasures of the Smithsonian (1983), Fighters: The World's Great Aces and Their Planes (1990), Over America (1995), and two memoirs: Angels Twenty (1994) and a second autobiography completed shortly before his death.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), February 21, 2005, p. 52.

Washington Post, February 20, 2005, p. C11.