Michael Mead

Indian Rocks Beach - Michael Mead, the former publisher of the Erie Times-News and Chairman of the Times Publishing Company, died on Monday, Sept. 18, in Florida, where he lived with his wife, Del "Didi" Mead, for several years. Michael, or Mike to his colleagues, was born and raised in Erie, the grandson of the founder of the Erie Daily Times. He graduated from Williams College and went to work at Bankers Trust Co. in New York. He married Adele Edgar, a Smith College graduate, and the two moved to Cambridge, Mass., where he attended Harvard Business School.

After graduation from HBS, Michael joined the family business in Erie. The newspaper began expanding, acquiring two publications in Warren, Pa., where Michael became publisher and moved his family. There, he was an early adopter of alternative forms of transportation and was seen bicycling to work. There, he was a member of the Shakespeare Society and, ever the outdoorsman, was appointed to the Pennsylvania Fish and Game Commission.

Michael's professional life focused on expanding the newspaper's media holdings to include cable, radio, and newspapers outside of Pennsylvania. He was actively involved in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the former Hamot Medical Center board of directors, Gannon University, Perseus House, the Times Old Newsies, and many transportation and economic development organizations.

But his real love involved travel, food, and reading - and sharing this passion with work colleagues and his family. When traveling throughout the United States in search of properties to acquire, he learned about the many regional food and wine specialties. Work colleagues who recall layovers with taxi rides to collect barbecue in Kansas, muffulettas in New Orleans, and many bottles of wine from California. He had Zagat guides for every city he planned to visit or have a layover. Trips to New York City for the Pennsylvania Society always included exploring new restaurants and exciting chefs, such as the Union Square Caf? in the 1980s, visits to Strand Books, and later Barnes & Noble, where he ordered nearly 100 books to fill his children's and his grandchildren's Christmas book lists.

Michael traveled the world with the love of his life, Adele. During their more than 60 years of marriage, they went to the Chelsea Flower Show in England, shipping cast iron flamingos home to their Lake Erie residence, cruised the Nile River, hauled truffled Dijon mustard home from Paris in their luggage, visited the emergency room in China, and drove throughout Italy in a stick shift without Google maps. Indeed, Italy was a passion the two shared, from the food to the wine to the art. Indeed, his Erie home was filled with artwork from his travels, especially landscapes from Italy and California. Michael and Adele hung paintings from local artists such as Gene Rizzo, Juan Sanchez Guaranton, and the late Bill Woo in their Florida home.

The arrival of grandchildren showed a different side of Michael, a man known for his stern face sitting across from a negotiating table was now seen beaming on a park bench outside Creamland surrounded by the smiling and somewhat sticky faces of Jack, David, Emily, Michael, Alexandra, James, William, and Nicole. Pater, his grandfather appellation, took his entire brood to Ireland in 2017 to visit Kildysart, where his grandfather, John Mead Sr, had emigrated from as a young boy.

Michael Mead was born in Erie in 1938, the first child of the late George and Mary Evelyn Mead. He is survived by his wife, Del, whom he married in 1962 in Winnetka, Ill. His children and grandchildren also survive him: Marguerite (Marnie) and Nicole; Kevin and Michael and Alexandra; William and his wife, Jennifer, and Jack, David and Emily; and MaryEvelyn (M'Evie) and her husband, John Hickey, and James and William. He is also survived by his siblings Kevin, Nora and Timothy.

In lieu of flowers, donations to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at https://bit.ly/44WO86e; Magnolia at Mease Life at https://measelife.com/foundation/; or Sun Coast Hospice (Pearl Team) at https://suncoasthospice.org/donate/

The immediate family plans a private memorial service in Florida.

Portrait by Gilbert Early.