Bill Edmondson

Bill Edmondson

Retired history professor

EL CAJON, Calif. — Bill Edmondson, who delighted audiences in Montrose for nearly 20 years with his irreverent and light-hearted presentations about Colorado culture and characters, died Nov. 13. Bill, who had moved to El Cajon, Calif., in 2006, was 88.

Bill grew up in Moline, Ill., across the Mississippi River from his birthplace home of Muscatine, Iowa. After high school, he worked for a time in a hardware store and then served in the Army during World War II. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights, Bill enrolled at Illinois' Augustana College after the war and continued his education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, Calif., where he earned a Ph.D. in history. His dissertation was entitled "Fundamentalist Sects of Los Angeles, 1900-1930."

In 1959, Bill and his wife, Evelyn, came to Gunnison, Colo., where Bill joined the faculty of Western State College. For the next 26 years, the Edmondsons were key members of the college community, Bill as a popular professor of history and Evelyn as secretary to the president and the dean of faculty.

At Western State, in addition to teaching history, Bill organized an annual cricket event, drawing on his exposure to the sport when he was stationed as a soldier on the British island of Bermuda. He and other faculty members even took a group of students to Los Angeles in 1973 to play against UCLA's Cricket Club. The NCAA listed Bill as the only cricket coach in the nation.

In retirement, the Edmondsons settled in Montrose in 1988, and Bill immersed himself in the culture of the community. He spoke regularly at meetings of the Montrose County Historical Society and before other organizations. Not a churchgoer himself, Bill's longtime academic interest in American religious movements, led him to attend a service at every Montrose church, curious about "what they were up to," said Marge Morgenstern, a neighbor and friend of the Edmondsons.  Bill also organized a cricket demonstration, presented during Youth Appreciation Days at the community athletic fields.

Bill's rich, deep voice and his oratorical skill, combined with his scholarly training and insatiable curiosity, made him a memorable teacher and community member. In recent years in Montrose, he twice performed as narrator for concerts of the Montrose Community Band, and he provided the audio commentary for an archaeology club program on early Rome.

Bill and Evelyn Edmondson shared 62 years together. With Evelyn's death in 2005, Bill decided he should relocate closer to the homes of his sister and nephew, and he moved to a retirement facility in El Cajon, not far from Claremont, where he had studied for his doctorate in history. Continuing to drive, he negotiated the freeways and side roads of his new haunts, and he explored the research libraries of the area, pursuing his interest in the culture of American religions. Earlier this year, he spoke on that topic to a study group of the United Church of Christ in Carlsbad.

In recent months, Bill's health declined, and he died after a short illness, less than 10 days after his fellow Illinoisan, Barack Obama, was elected president. After a private service, Bill was buried at Fort Rosecrans Military Cemetery in Point Loma, Calif.