Obituary for Edward G. Sprague Edward G. Sprague, 91, of Brandenburg, passed away surrounded by his loving family on Tuesday October 1, 2018. He was born January 30, 1927 in Wauwatosa, WI to William H. Sprague and Sara Gurney Sprague. He was preceded in death by his parents; his two sisters, Kay Hansen and Marion Davis; and beloved wife of 65 years, Mary Elizabeth Sprague.
His childhood was enriched with many passions: learning, acquiring and retaining knowledge, adventure and joy through vocal and instrumental musical talent and performance. He graduated from University of Colorado with a Chemical Engineering degree in 1948 and a love for the western US, as Colorado and Utah were his favorite states for travel. He began an illustrious career at Dow Corning in Midland, MI, where in the product development labs, he met his lifelong love and kindred spirit, Mary Elizabeth (Thayer) and they were married on March 31, 1951.
His tenure with Dow Corning included many adventures. He was part of the start-up team for Dow Corning’s Greensboro, NC plant from 1955-1967 where he and Mary designed and built two homes for their new family. They relocated to Trumbull, CT, where he served as plant manager at the Dow Corning-acquired Molykote plant from 1967-1969.
From 1969 to 1976 he was plant manager for Dow Corning Elizabethtown, KY location. Ed became an active and valued community leader as a Kentucky Colonel (1970), president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1971-72, school board member 1975-76, a key supporter of the start of Elizabethtown Greenspace/Greenbelt project (with Mary), and was chairman of the fund drive in 1975 that led to Elizabethtown’s first indoor pool built at TK Stone Middle School. In 1976, in an exciting and challenging move, he relocated to Campinas, Brazil to start Dow Corning’s new venture from the ground up.
There, he and Mary loved being immersed in the Brazilian and expatriate cultural opportunities. In 1980 they returned to Midland, MI where he worked as a corporate quality manager until his retirement in 1987. He is well remembered at the plants he managed for his daily excursions around the manufacturing floor and his heartfelt interest in everyone’s ideas and personal lives.
Mary and Ed moved to Brandenburg, KY to build their retirement dream home on the lake at Doe Valley. Together, Ed and Mary enthusiastically traveled the world widely, visiting Turkey, Australia, France, New Zealand, Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Peru, England, Budapest, all of South America as well as camping throughout the USA and Canada. Nature, birding, local cultures and history, genealogy, museums and Penske racing provided the organizing framework for their voyaging.
When not traveling, he and Mary were focused and instrumental in creating and maintaining the Greenspace trail system around Elizabethtown. In 1999, the City and Greenspace dedicated a naturalized water feature in their honor–“The Sprague Spot”. In 2018, Greenspace honored Ed with a lifetime achievement award.
Always a conscientious environmental supporter and advocate, he respected and appreciated nature and how environmental issues affected the world. Ed’s life-long love of swimming was evident in his many levels of participation, including supporting and serving as the chairman of local community swim teams, swimming with the sea lions in the Galapagos Islands, swimming laps at the lake at Doe Valley, as recent as Labor Day 2018 and attending his grandson, Aidan’s swim meet in the summer of 2017. He began singing as a boy soprano in Milwaukee and participated as an accomplished tenor in church choirs in Midland, Greensboro, Trumbull and Elizabethtown.
Ed was recognized in 1987 as an enthusiastic member of the Michigan Men of Music state choir. To the very end, he greatly loved reading both fiction and culture (Native American and Western Culture in particular), opera broadcasts and performances, observing nature at his home, filling birdfeeders, the daily crossword and balanced news broadcasts, working as the Greenspace Treasurer, and the daily tasks of keeping up his home. The family was nurtured and enriched by a home filled with art, music, food, sports, warmth and an open location for lively and eclectic sharing of ideas, opinions and just conversation.
As the center for his extended family and friends, he and Mary’s home exuded a warm welcome throughout the years, especially on holidays. He wholeheartedly loved and cared deeply about his entire family, helping support their life decisions with his sage advice and balanced, modest example while having the grace to never judge or intrude too far in their lives. Ed is survived by 4 children: Susan McCloy (Stuart) and grandchildren Sarah and Will McCloy; Chuck (Dianne); Bill (Julee), grandchildren Aidan Goodwin and Arin Young (Ryan) plus great-grandchildren Parker and Hunter Young; and Barbara Cannon and grandchildren Anna and Andrew Cannon.
A memorial service with be announced at a later time. Memorial contributions may go to Greenspace Inc., P.O. Box 550, Elizabethtown, KY 42702-0550; to The Nature Conservancy; or to your local public library. .
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