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- The Herald (New Britain, CT)
July 8, 2013
NEW BRITAIN — Rev. Norman C. Eddy, a New Britain-born pastor and social reformer, passed away June 21.
Rev. Eddy, 93, died of old age at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City. A June 29 ceremony led by Rev. Kimberly Wright was held in his honor at the Church of Resurrection on 325 East 101st Street, N.Y.
Rev. Eddy received numerous awards for combating racism, violence, drug abuse, and poverty.
He was born Feb. 9, 1920 into the home of Stanley and Alice (Heart) Eddy in New Britain. He and his older brother Howard "Howdy" Eddy attended Shuttle Meadow (now Mooreland Hill) School, which their mother helped found. He then attended high school at Pomfret School, and spent a year at Stowe School in Buckingham, England, before attending Yale University. World War II erupted when the Rev. Eddy and his brother were on summer vacation in Europe, and the two returned home.
In 1940, he spent two months in Cuba as part of the American Friends Service Committee, working with 50 Jewish refugees and teaching them English to prepare them for applying for visas in the United States.
A lifelong pacifist, the Rev. Eddy volunteered in 1942 for the American Field Service during World War II as an ambulance driver. He was attached to the British 8th Army, which served in Egypt, Libya and Austria. In 1943, while the ambulances drove on the road to Damascus, he, like St. Paul, said he experienced a life-changing spiritual vision.
From 1945-1948, the Rev. Eddy visited monasteries, Quaker communities and Krishnamurti, studying many religions. This led him to become a full-time student at Union Theological Seminary, where he decided to become a Protestant Congressional minister.
While doing field work with the East Harlem Protestant Parish, he met Peggy Ruth (Margaret Lindsay Ruth), who shared his passion for social justice. The two were married in 1950, and became co-pastors of a storefront church on 100 East St., New York, that eventually merged with other storefront churches to become the Church of Resurrection.
Together they raised three children in New York tenements on East 100th Street, Rebecca Eddy Feuerstein, Tim Eddy and Martha Eddy. In 1970, they moved to a brownstone apartment on East 105th Street, where the Rev. Eddy lived until his death. He lived to become a grandfather and a great-grandfather.
Rev. Eddy was also the founder of several community organizations including the East Harlem Narcotics Committee, The Metro-North Citizens Committee, East Harlem Interfaith, The East Harlem Credit Union, the East Harlem Urban Center and the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers. The Rev. Eddy was a mediator during race riots in East Harlem, and supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Courthouse of Albany, Ga. He also pioneered prison reform, corresponding with inmates and transforming gangs into social clubs.
He frequently donated to organizations that supported non-violent, spiritually driven reform, and was a behind-the -cenes campaigner for NY Mayors Wagner, Lindsay and Koch as well as President Jimmy Carter.
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1920 - 2013 (93 years)
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