It was a real privilege to have known Edward Graham of Stockholm who has since passed away at the age of 100 years. He was absolutely the most knowledgeable and most brilliant person we have ever had the pleasure to know! It is almost impossible to describe his incredible intellect, his philosophical  understanding of human existence and human interaction, and his extensive knowledge of most everything in this universe. This might all seem like a slight exaggeration to describe this man, but it is not. Just a ten-minute conversation with him and you would have been dazzled and impressed with his wit, his charm, and his enormous capability to talk on most any subject with authority and confidence. All of this was coupled with his proper sophisticated politeness and a gentleman demeanor.

We last visited him in 1997 at his summer retreat in Hanstavik near Stockholm (as seen above). Prior to that, he had traveled to visit with Dave's mother and us when he was at the age of 92. Dave's mother had been helping him with a manuscript of a book he was writing. In his later years he started to loose his hearing, but that did not detour him in having stimulating conversations. Dave remembers that all he needed to hear were a few questions, and then he could talk to you for hours on a subject that would start out with basic facts and end up in the philosophical realm of reality.

Edward was a well-educated man and an engineer by trade. He and his family have been involved in the elevator business, and Graham elevators are now found all over the world. An interesting side light here is that when we were in Trondheim, Norway, we happened to be visiting some friends in an apartment building where we rode in a Graham elevator, an elevator that was documented to be the oldest elevator in Norway.

It is quite interesting on how we had come to know Edward. It happened that Dave's mother had been a care taker of Edward's cousin, John Fitzpatrick, who in his later years was left without family to look after him. When John passed away, he directed that Dave's mother insure that a family heirloom be given to Edward. This heirloom happened to be a very old and valuable timepiece that was jewel encrusted and made of gold. It was the size of a baseball and it was engraved as being presented by the queen of Sweden. Dave's mother subsequently traveled to Sweden and presented the valuable item to Edward. It was then that many years of friendship began with this wonderful man.

When we were in Stockholm in 1997, we were hosted by Edward's son Arthur and his now former wife Elisabeth at the Graham summer retreat at Hanstavik. In the picture above, Arthur is behind Edward's head, and Elisabeth is at the back center of the picture. This place is located in a beautiful setting on an inlet of the Baltic Sea. Later, Diana had a chance to absorb some sun on their boat dock and take a refreshing swim in the Baltic.

On one early evening, we were taken to a restaurant on Stockholm's harbor and treated to a delicious crawdad dinner. Their technique of eating crawdads is to first bend the crawdad in half and then, with your lips to the center part, suck out the juices with a hefty slurping and sucking sound. It did not seem particularly polite to do this, but we did it with gusto. On another evening, on Dave's birthday, we were treated to a special event for invited guests at the top floor of a bank building in Stockholm where we were provided a grand multicourse dinner with music and entertainment, and then a view of a fireworks show in Stockholm's harbor, which was part of the city's Water Festival celebration. We enjoyed meeting these wonderful people and the attention they gave to us.