We are stardust
We are golden
And we have to get ourselves
Back to the garden
- Joni Mitchell
Edna was born to Theodore Stone and Alma Seelinger Stone in 1932, the only child of 1st generation Swedish and German Americans. Raised in Staten Island, NY, she graduated from Curtis HS and went on to attend Wagner College. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where she met her future husband, Lee, who attended nearby Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. They married in 1954 and moved to Lafayette, IN where Lee pursued a graduate education at Purdue University and she taught 4th grade. Together they had 3 children, Patricia, Lynn, and Theodore.
Edna was strong-willed, articulate, and cheeky, and she loved to be the center of attention. She was drawn to community theater and it became her passion for many years, leading her to study with the acting coach Ted Liss, in Chicago in the 1970s. Had things turned out differently, she would have followed her professional dreams to NYC or California. Eventually, she turned her energies to retail management and found enjoyment and pride in selling fine jewelry.
Edna was unique and memorable, described recently, by someone who knew her well, as “One of One”, she had a sense of humor that wasn’t necessarily intentional. She had dyed her hair red for the part of Miss Adelaide in a production of Guys and Dolls in 1971. She loved the attention it brought her so much that she continued to dye it red until she was 89. When the inevitable remark was made about her hair color she would reply, without a trace of irony, “Clairol 108.” She loved football, old movies, had an eclectic taste in music which ran from Broadway cast albums to Tom Jones and Garth Brooks, and she adored spoiling the succession of pups she adopted throughout her adult life.
She made her own choices in life until the very end, regardless of limits, whether real or imposed. Edna left this world, which never truly fit her, at the age of 91. She has finally made it back to her real home, in the garden, shining among the stars.
Coastal Cremations 6 Jacksonville St., Wilmington NC 28403
910.392.6032
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