Edward
William Kludt
My
brother, Edward William Kludt, nicknamed “Eddie Bill” or “Eddie” and later
“Ed”, was born 24 March 1964 in Centralia, Lewis County, Washington to William
Edward Kludt and Joycelyn Bea Keesee. At
the time of his birth, we were living on a dairy farm in Rochester on Browne
Road (now Applegate).
I have a memory of when
we brought him home from the hospital (this was the old Centralia General
Hospital located on North Iron Street).
We parked across the street from the hospital and waited for mom to come
out (I don’t remember who was in the car with me – I was only 4 years old).
Mom said that he became
my “living doll”. I would dress him up
in my doll clothes (I had a really big doll).
I can remember a time when we stayed with Papa and Grandma Kludt and
Grandma kept calling him “her little stink pot”. She was changing his dirty diaper. Mom would always rock him to sleep, and
Grandma refused. So, he cried a lot when
we were there. The reason mom rocked him
was that when he was first born, they discovered he had a hernia. They had to wait until he was a few months
old before operating. So, he wasn’t
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When
he was about three years old, he wandered away without telling anybody. Mom asked me if I knew where he was, and I
said no. She called his name and
searched all over the house and around it.
Then she went down to the barns and started calling his name. She was so afraid that he might have fallen
into the open malt pit we had next to the barn and milking parlor. Suddenly, I said, “Mom, is that him way over
there?” pointing across the road where we had a very huge pasture. I can see this orange hat bobbing up and
down. She hollered at him, and he came
back. She told him to never wander away
again without anybody with him. His
reply, “I wasn’t by myself. I had the
dog(s)
with
me.”
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As we
were the only kids, we played together a lot.
I remember one time when we were playing a game outside. I can’t remember if we were fighting or
not. But we were running around the
exterior of the house. He was chasing
me. When, suddenly, I heard this
cry. I went back and discovered he had fallen,
hitting his nose on the concrete slab that was holding the hinges to the door
covering the stairwell into the underground root cellar (mom stored all her
canned goods and root vegetables). I
think he had broken his nose. There was
a lot of blood. After that incident, it
didn’t take much for him to get bloody noses – especially in the summer.
The
summer of 1967, we moved from Rochester back to the family farm in Zenkner
Valley (just north of the city limits of Centralia). We still played a lot by ourselves. But we also had a couple of neighbors (about
a half mile away) that we played with as well.
Ed started school in the Fall of 1969
at Logan School. Centralia School
District had this as the Kindergarten Center for everyone. Then from 1970 to 1973, he attended Fords Prairie
Elementary School for Grades 1-3. This
is because in the fall of 1970, Centralia School District decided to have the
elementary schools be partnered – one school will have Grades 1-3 while the
other school will have Grades 4-6. There
was one school that had all six grades. Because
of that, we were never in the same school at the same time. From 1973 to 1976, he was at Oakview
Elementary School for Grades 4-6. Junior
High covered Grades 7 & 8 and the High School had 9th through 12th. He graduated in 1982. He attended L H Bates Technical School out of
Tacoma to earn his diesel mechanic’s certificate. He finished his coursework early, completed
his internship and received his certificate in March 1985.
Ed was
smart. He could, if he wanted to, be a
4.0 student. Actually, he did when he
was in college. There’s a story my mom
tells about him when he was in the 5th grade. She was volunteering at the school and his
teacher saw her in the hall way and approached her. He said he was concerned about Ed failing
math. Mom looked at him and said that it
couldn’t be possible, that he was doing his sister’s 9th grade math
(that would have been algebra). Mr Bower
(nicknamed Frosty) wouldn’t believe her until about a month later. This was about the time when schools
administered the Iowa Skills test; the results came back – Ed tested out at 9th
Grade math! When Frosty saw mom in the
hallways again, he apologized. The
problem – Ed wasn’t being challenged; therefore, he didn’t turn in his work!
Ed’s extracurricular activities
included Scouting, Band, and Wrestling.
He started his Scouting career as a Cub Scout in the second grade
(Wolf). I can remember him working on
his Pinewood Derby cars, but I never went to any of his pack meetings (which is
a shame as it is a family meeting). He
earned his Eagle Scout in 1976. At that
time, he was the youngest Scout to earn
Eagle in the Council. His project was
clean-up of a local cemetery along with his best friend. I remember going to his Court of Honor after I
got off work. He was also involved with
Explorer Search & Rescue, first as our subject/victim (he was too young to
join), then as a regular member. Explorers are for ages 14-20.
He
started band when he was in the 5th Grade. He played trombone. This was where they learned how to play the
instruments and read the music. It was
held during lunch hour. When he went to
Junior High, he was in a regular band class.
What was interesting is that our dad was also in band during his high
school years playing the trombone. I can
remember one time when we had our cousins visiting that he got out his trombone
to show them what he can do. When he finished
playing, he removed the mouthpiece, and he had blood all around his mouth. Oh, and there was another time that we
attended a concert at the Junior High School.
This would have been when he was in the 8th grade. After his concert, he joined us in the stands
while watching the 7th grade.
Mom & I asked him about a person in that band, we both thought it
was a relative of ours (nephew/cousin).
His reply was, “that is Pete Eddings”, which was not the name we were
thinking of. However, we found out later
that it was the same person, he was adopted by his stepfather.
Ed
married Rose Ellen Tiller on the 19th of November 1983 at Free
United Methodist Church in Centralia.
Rose was still attending high school at the time. They lived in a trailer house on her mother’s
property in Grand Mound. I’m not sure
exactly how they met or how long they dated before getting married. There are a couple of stories that Mom tells
about Rose when they were dating. One of
the stories is that Rose was at the house up in the valley and they were
playing pool in the basement. Mom asked
if Rose was staying for dinner. Response
was “yes”. Then Ed asked what was for
dinner and mom replied, “your favorite”.
When mom hollered that dinner was ready, only Ed came up the
stairs. Rose decided to leave after
hearing what Ed’s favorite dish was. So,
next time, mom decided to do a sneaky thing – she didn’t say what was for
dinner. She just cut up the meat and put
it on the serving tray. By the time it
got to Rose, it was gone. She knew she
couldn’t go back into the kitchen to slice up more as that would give it away. You know, I don’t think Rose ever tried
it. What was the favorite dish, you ask?
It was beef tongue. Not one of my
favorites either.
Ed
passed away on 31 March 1985 as a result of a drunk-driving car accident. He was with a couple of friends celebrating 21’s (Ed and his two
buddies all had birthdays at the same time of the year). While the guys were taking one of the friend’s home, the driver lost control of the car and
crashed. Only one survived (he was
thrown clear due to being asleep in the back seat). The sad part, Rose & Ed just discovered
that she was pregnant. Candace Lee Kludt
was born nine months later on the 5th of December 1985.
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