Edward P. Edinger

Edward P. Edinger, age 98, of Meadville, PA passed away on Friday February 13, 2026. Ed was born in Allentown, PA on August 30, 1927 to the late Edward P. Sr. and Cecelia A (Haibt) Edinger. He married Doris M. Knox in April of 1958. She survives.

Ed was the planning director of the Crawford County Planning Commission from 1973-1994, and as such worked throughout the county’s 51 municipalities as well as on county government matters. Through these years the Planning Office completed approximately a dozen comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances in the county’s boroughs and townships. Also during this same time period, the office implemented numerous infrastructure projects where federal and state grant monies were leveraged with modest amounts of local municipal money to fund the improvements. Ed’s spirits were continually raised by experiencing the energy, enterprise and ingenuity of the county’s local municipal officials.

He graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1950 with a degree in History and Social Studies and then spent three years in the U.S. Army doing occupation duty in Korea and Germany. In 1957 Ed earned a degree in Landscape Architecture from the Pennsylvania State University and spent three years working on site development and landscape projects in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis. In 1960 he began work as a community planner with a job in Lake County government in the northwest corner of Indiana. Following this he spent ten years in the city of Baltimore as a community planner while earning a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the Catholic University in Washington D.C.

Ed was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville. He served many years as secretary of the Fairview/Fairmont Housing Board organized jointly by the First Presbyterian and the Stone Methodist Churches in order to provide affordable housing for county residents; also he served with the John Brown Heritage Association, responsible for commemorating the abolitionist John Browns’ 10 years of residence in Crawford County. Ed served on the Meadville Housing Authority for 10 years and was active for a number of years with the Crawford County Coalition on Housing Needs through the period that saw the establishment of the South Main Place Homeless Shelter and the Liberty House transitional housing facility.

Ed spent a good deal of time caring for the landscape of his home grounds including a perennial vegetable garden; he enjoyed a large collection of books; and doing anything to aid in the welfare of his family. He and his brother Walt owned a thirty-five-acre forested property in the county which served as a rural refuge for them.

Survivors in additional to his wife, Doris, include a son, Thomas and his long time partner, Andrea Smith of Allentown, PA; a daughter, Ann Edinger Mackiewicz of Meadville, PA; a brother, Walter of Dousman, WI; two nephews, Michael Edinger of Berlin, Germany and Stephen Edinger and his wife, Jennifer of Oconomowoc, WI and grand niece and nephew, Mackenzie and Zachary Edinger.

In addition to his parents, Ed was preceded in death by his sister-in-law Marlene Edinger.

Family and friends are invited to call on Wednesday February 18, 2026, from 4pm-6 pm at Hatheway-Tedesco Funeral Home and Crematory, 614 Baldwin Street, Meadville, PA 16335. Funeral service will be on Thursday February 19, 2026, at 11:00 am at First Presbyterian Church, 890 Liberty Street, Meadville, PA 16335 with Reverend Benjamin Black officiating. He will be laid to rest at Greendale Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers memorials can be made to the John Brown Association, PO Box 312, Meadville, PA 16335, First Presbyterian Church of Meadville, PA or an organization of the giver’s choice.

Please sign Ed’s online guestbook at www.hatheway-tedesco.com

Arrangements have been entrusted to Hatheway-Tedesco Funeral Home and Crematory, 614 Baldwin St., Meadville, PA 16335.