Edward Dark

Edward D. Dark

Shreveport, LA Funeral services for Edward D. Dark, 90, will be held at 11:00 a.m., Saturday, January 23, 2016, at Centuries Memorial Funeral Home, 8801 Mansfield Road, with Rev. Juan Huertas, senior pastor of Grace Community United Methodist Church, officiating. The family will receive friends from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Friday, January 22, 2016, at the funeral home.

Ed passed away on January 19, 2016. He was born on October 26, 1925, in Shreveport, Louisiana and was a 1942 graduate of Fair Park High School. After a year at Texas A & M University, he served as a radio operator and trainer of radar operators in the Army Air Corps from 1943-47, serving after the war in the South Pacific. Upon his discharge, he returned to Shreveport and began a career at ARKLA Gas, where he was the print shop operator and manager. He retired in 1985.

In 1950, he married Lillian Jeanette Bel. They were married for 56 years until her death in 2006. Despite having never met his father and having a very tough childhood, Ed became a loving husband, a caring and involved father to his two children and a wonderful grandfather to five young people who thought he was the best Papaw on earth. Before Jeanette died, they decided to help their grandchildren with their college expenses. The "prestigious Papaw scholarships", as they became known, helped all of them graduate from college and become successful adults.

Ed loved gardening. The vegetables he grew were the highlight of many meals for his family. He also loved sports, especially baseball, and amazed his family for years with his memory for details of players and games going back to his childhood. Even when they Googled the events to check his memory, he was seldom wrong.

He is survived by his children, Tom Dark and his wife Mary, and Sherri Lambert and her husband LeRoy; by his grandchildren, Allen Dark and his wife Tiffany, Leah Heeter and her husband Andrew, James, Hannah and Grace Lambert; and the two great-grandchildren who knew him as Big Papaw, Madeline and Abigail Dark. He is also survived by his three half-sisters, Mary Ellen Pipes, Nellie McKeithan and Carolyn Parker.

Ed was a member of Kingston Road Baptist Church and formerly of the Brookwood Baptist Church, where he taught youth Sunday School classes for many years. He was a man of faith and prayer.

The family would like to thank all those who helped Ed during his final illness, especially his good friend Pat Merrill, who cheered his spirits every time she called or visited him. They also want to thank the staff of Willis-Knighton Hospice, particularly Lucie Grove and Tristy Sullivan, for their loving care during the last weeks of Ed's life.

Persons wishing to make memorial contributions in Ed's name are asked to consider a gift to the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission, Providence House or Common Ground Community.

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith."