Robert and Viva Lee Ed

Colonel (retired) Robert C. Ed entered peacefully into eternal rest at age 85 on January 30, 2023, preceded by his wife Viva Lee B. (McCarty) Ed on May 31, 2020 at age 82 after 60 years of marriage.

Viva Lee (McCarty) Ed was born March 29, 1938 in Kankakee. Robert Ed was born on May 28, 1937 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and moved to Bourbonnais in 1952. They became high school sweethearts when they square danced together with their Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops. Robert enjoyed tennis, volleyball, and saxophone. Viva Lee was a student teacher's aide throughout school, and an active member of the Girls' Athletic Association and yearbook staff.

Robert and Viva Lee married on February 6, 1960, and had three children. Viva Lee attended Mary Crest Business College, and secured employment with the Kankakee Illinois Gas Company. Robert attended University of Illinois and was commissioned as an officer in the Army upon graduation, a career spanning 27 years. They lived in seven states including Hawaii, as well as a NATO base in Belgium. Robert had three wartime tours in Vietnam, and helped develop the Global Positioning System (GPS) system.

After retirement in 1987, the couple adopted a full-time recreational vehicle (RV) lifestyle, and traveled throughout the US and Canada, often with family and friends. Together, they wrote six genealogy books that can be found at The Family History Museum in Salt Lake City, UT. They loved camping, hiking, attending NASCAR races, and riding their side-by-side all-terrain vehicle (ATV) in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Colorado.

Robert and Viva Lee Ed will be interred together at the Central Texas Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas with full military honors on April 7, 2023.

They are survived by all three of their children, six grandchildren and a great-grandson.