Edward J. Popkins

EDWARD J. POPKINS

Edward James Popkins, age 81, a career mortgage banker in southwest Connecticut who lived much of his life in Greenwich, died June 11, 2006, in Winter Park, Fla., of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Born Nov. 20, 1924, in Sayre, Pa., to Edward Franklin and Marie Christensen Popkins, he grew up the eldest of five children in the Fourth Ward section of Greenwich, graduating from Greenwich High School in January 1943. He immediately enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving from 1943-46 in the Pacific Theater during World War II and rising to staff sergeant. He lived in Greenwich for another 13 years after the war, except while on active duty as a tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force from 1951-52 in Southern California during the Korean War.

He married Ann Miriam Reardon of Waterbury on Sept. 8, 1951, in St. Mary's Church in Greenwich. They had three children, whom they raised in Greenwich, Ridgefield and Hamden. He and his wife divorced in 1987.

After working in New York for an importer and in Stamford for a law firm, Popkins started in the mortgage business with Lomas & Nettleton Co. of Stamford in 1954, rising from clerk to loan originator to manager. In 1960, he joined Fairfield County Trust Co., a commercial bank later known as Union Trust Co., and was eventually promoted to vice president and senior mortgage officer. From 1973-79, he ran NBI Mortgage Investment Corp. of New Haven, created by Union Trust's corporate parent, serving as senior vice president and chief operating officer. When NBI was merged into the bank, Popkins moved to Westport Bank & Trust Co. as senior vice president and senior mortgage officer from 1979-90. Before retiring in 1992, he returned to Union Trust for two years as vice president of the bank's real estate workout group.

Popkins had a bachelor of science degree in business from the University of Bridgeport, earned in June 1961 after more than eight years of night school. He spent many years in service to the blind as a life member of Lions Club International, which he joined in 1962. He was a past president of both the Stamford and the New Haven clubs, and a Melvin Jones Fellow.

A nearly lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Popkins held leadership positions at churches in South Salem, N.Y.; Fairfield; and Stamford. He had moved to Winter Park in 1999 to be near his grandchildren and had been a resident of Winter Park Towers since 2001.

His wife died in 1998; a granddaughter, Katharine Costello Popkins, died in 1998; and his younger son, John Reardon Popkins, died in 2003. He is survived by a daughter, Marcella M. Curry of South Dennis, Mass., and her husband, David W. Curry; another son, Edward J. "Ned" Popkins Jr. of Orlando, Fla., and his wife, Marianne McClain Popkins; grandsons Taylor Edward Popkins, John Francis Popkins and Duncan McClain Popkins, all of Orlando; and two sisters, Marie Reynolds of Naugatuck and Eleanor Keene of Duxbury, Mass.

Popkins' ashes will be buried next to his wife's body at St. Mary's Cemetery in Greenwich. A memorial service will take place Aug. 5 at 11 a.m. in Knapp Funeral Home, 267 Greenwich Ave. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to the Lion's Club of New Haven Charitable Trust, P.O. Box 8012, New Haven, Conn. 06530.