After we moved to the Noank area by the 1980s, we met a dedicated, long-time member of the Groton Town Council who focused some energy on the subject of littering.

Woe betide the miscreants who casually tossed their coffee cups or sandwich wrappers out their car window as they drove along Route 1 if Councilor Edward Eckelmeyer was driving nearby. He would follow their car, pull up next to them and introduce himself. He would then politely but firmly request that they return to find and properly dispose of their discarded trash.

Naturally, Ed had recorded their license plates and could report them, so they usually co-operated. The result was that there was a noticeable reduction in littering around the Groton area. Word got around pretty quickly to be more careful with trash and to treat our surroundings with more respect, which was always Ed’s underlying message.

We first met Ed at the Noank Baptist Church, helping to solve a problem with drainage under the Meeting House. We needed someone who had good technical knowledge of the building and would be both capable and willing to crawl underneath the structure in wet, narrow spaces to locate problems. Not surprisingly, there were no immediate volunteers for this task.

Enter Edward Eckelmeyer, with a BS in Electrical Engineering plus an MBA, a solid career with RCA, Harris Graphics and Electric Boat, with experience designing devices for underwater exploration and a patent for an uninterrupted printing process.

Ed proceeded to analyze our problem, opened the floor hatch, turned on his portable searchlight and crawled around in sub-basement dampness during at least two days... as a volunteer. When he finished, wet and dirty, he gave us firsthand reports to make proper repairs to the utility systems.

We were to learn later just how extensive Ed’s work had been, and in so many areas of expertise: serving as RCA adviser to the Burmese and Korean Air Forces, as an EB electrical engineer of research submarine NR-1 for Robert Ballard to explore undersea wrecks, and and as a rowing shell rigger and maintainer for his daughter’s University of Virginia crew team after he “retired” from “regular” work.

Ed was a man of many interests: working on the family house, building furniture, camping out, hiking, boating, SCUBA diving and operating his HAM radio. He was a solid family man, devoted to his wife, Barbara, and their daughters.

We were sad when they moved to New Jersey to be closer to their family members, and we were sadder still to learn of Ed’s passing in early January 2021.

What we’ll remember most about Ed was his friendly, personable attitude and his ability to discuss may subjects on many levels. We’ll miss the frequent walks that he and Barbara would take around Noank and our frequent conversations in the street as they came by our house. We always felt better after visiting with them, even for just a short while.

R.I.P., and thank you, Ed Eckelmeyer, for everything you did.

Ed Johnson and his daughter Lacy live in Noank.