She grew up in a large, boisterous family on a farm in Oregon set in a small town in Northern California. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in Physical Therapy, she spent twenty-six years in Geriatric Rehabilitation in various nursing homes in Virginia and California.

 

A turning point in the middle of her long life occurred after a most devastating event – the suicide of her son, Bobby, in 1985. This was the catalyst that changed the course of her journey. She discovered that death and dying and grief and healing were paramount in her life journey. She walked a new path of healing and spiritual growth through the life-changing processes of Attitudinal Healing, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Edy offered classes in death and dying to nursing assistants in the nursing homes where she worked and soon she developed a deep interest in the field of death and dying, or thanatology.

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As a Hospice Home-Care-Volunteer for almost forty years, Edy's passion for end-of-life matters deepened.  This work was cut short when the COVID pandemic struck but Edy continued her work when she served on the Mountains of Courage steering committee to produce an annual conference on matters of death. The Mountains of Courage mission “Conversations with the Living about Dying” resonated on a deep level with Edy who lives in Bozeman, Montana where the conference is held and is also where she has lived for the past seventeen years.