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Note: His World War I Draft Registration Card shows the following information: Name: Edwin Merton Gulick Permanent home address: RFD 4, Pleasant Hill, Cass, Missouri Date of birth: 25 April 1899 Present Occupation: Shipping Clerk, Knight Fire Co., 1528 Grand, Kansas City, Jackson, Missouri Nearest Relative: Mrs. A. F. Gulick Address: R.F.D. 4, Pleasant Hill, Cass, Missouri Height: Medium Build: Slender Eyes: Blue Hair: Brown Harrisonville, Cass Co., Missouri -- 9 September 1918 The 1930 federal census for Jackson Co., Missouri shows the value of his home as $4,300. After 70 years together, couple now kisses good night in hospital - A marriage to last a lifetime By Elaine Adams Staff Writer On a snowy Christmas Eve in 1921, Margie Ellison and Ed Gulick climbed aboard a Strang railway car bound to Olathe from Kansas City. They rapped on the door of the Methodist preacher's house and asked to be married. "Why in the world did you pick a night like this, on Christmas Eve, to get married?" the minister asked. Why not? They were young. They loved each other. And it seemed fun. So Margie and Ed were wed on the sly. She wore a career outfit she can't describe now. Ed wore a suit. Today, as Ed lies seriously ill in Research Medical Center, they will observe their 70th anniversary. Together, as usual. Margie has slept and showered in the hospital room since her 92-year-old husband was admitted 2 1/2 weeks ago with pneumonia and an intestinal infection. "She thinks she ought to be with him, at his side," said a son, Gary Gulick. "That's what she's done for 70 years." Their elopement all those years ago, when she was 19 and he was 22, wasn't really as impetuous as most. The two had met several summers earlier when Ed worked shucking corn at the Ellison family farm near Peculiar in Cass County. Margie and her friends threw corncobs at him. Later, Ed invited Margie to a high school basketball game. Then another. And another. "By the time I had gone to a few basketball games," she said, "I decided I liked him." They and another couple eventually decided, for amusement mostly, to get married without telling anyone. Their friends married on Thanksgiving Day, 1921. On Christmas Eve, it was Margie and Ed's turn. They chose the same preacher who ministered to Ed's parents in Olathe. The groom already had written Margie's father to ask for her hand, but the Gulicks were not ready for their son's marriage. At church the next morning, Margie recalled, the minister strode up to the Gulicks and said, "Congratulations, I hear you have a new daughter." The newly weds nearly died on the spot. They had not planned to tell Ed's folks until Christmas dinner that evening. "You what?" the new father-in-law gasped. Then the elder Gulick expressed the sincere wish that one of Margie and Ed's offspring would elope one day. "And boy, it happened, too," Margie said. She was talking about her daughter, Helen Louise. But that's getting ahead of this story of middle-class America in the early 20th century. By 1924, the Gulicks had two children, Ed Jr. and Helen Louise. They adopted Gary in 1938. In 1925, Ed went to work for a little compressed-gas company that later would become Puritan-0Bennett Corp. In 1938 he moved to the Remington Arms Co., where he helped supervise the production of .30-caliber ammunition during World War II. He retired at age 75 from a welding company. In between, Ed and Margie picnicked together, fished together and played croquet together. He iced skated; she tried to. You had to be careful around Margie. One April Fools' Day, a guest bit into a biscuit and found a cotton ball baked inside. At a Halloween party, she threatened to brand blindfolded guests with a curling iron and then touched their necks with a piece of ice. You had to be energetic around Ed. In his 60s, he still could do "skin the cat," a kind of flip, on a tree limb. Grandchildren loved to scramble for the change that fell from his pocket. For years, children and grandchildren returned to the Gulick home each Christmas Eve. They would wake there the next morning for Christmas around the tree. Overnight stays stopped about 20 years ago when the family became too large. The Gulicks now have eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. For a good marriage, Margie Gulick advises couples to trust each other, enjoy each other and be true to each other. "When you go to bed," her husband says, "kiss your wife and tell her that you love her." He still does. When Gary leaves the hospital at night, he hears the smacking as he walks down the hall. The following was given for his father at the funeral by Gary E. Gulick: Edwin M. Gulick, Sr. April 25, 1899 - January 21, 1992 Ed Gulick was born in Sabetha, Kansas on Tuesday, April 25, 1899. Stop for a moment and try to imagine what things were like back there in 1899. For example: In 1899, anyone under the age of 40 could easily remember the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Spanish-American War had ended just the previous August ... and the most famous Rough Rider of them all -- Teddy Roosevelt -- was still two years away from wining the White House. The Industrial Revolution was well underway in 1899 ... but the horse was still the primary means of transportation. There were no cars, trucks, or busses. The telephone was a new-fangled invention ... and of course, there was no radio, no television, no fax machines, no computers. Most homes didn't even have central heat or running water. That was 1899 ... and that was what little Edwin found when he opened his eyes for the first time that Spring morning on a farm in Sabetha, Kansas. Over the years, he was to witness to some fantastic changes to his world! Mankind learned how to fly. We learned how to venture into space. We sent probes to visit other planets. We walked on the moon! We fought wars with one another. We signed peace treaties and then ignored them. Huge geo-political empires rose up ... only to dissolve again into tiny pieces. And throughout all of this, Ed Gulick was there, a constant witness and a frequent participant in the flood of events. He adjusted to all the dramatic changes in his world. He became strong and self-reliant. Over the years, he grew up, he went to work, and he raised a family. He and his six brothers and sisters grew up in farming communities in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. Upon graduating from high school in 1918, he moved to the Kansas City area, where he attended Finley Engineering College. He married Margaret Mae Ellison on Christmas Eve in 1921 ... and their marriage lasted for 70 years. During that time, they raised three children: Ed Junior, Helen Louise, and Gary. They each remember him with deep affection. They remember him as being a man of principals, a man of dignity, a man of honor. Ed Junior says that his father taught him to live by the Golden Rule. Time and again, he gently but firmly lectured his young son that a man is only as good as his word. Ed Junior recalls a time when he was about 10 years old. He and a friend had gotten a job passing out advertising handbills for the local grocery-store owner. As Ed Junior tells it: "it was a cold and snowy day ... and we decided to shorten the job by burning the handbills in our coal furnace. Unfortunately, the fire went out ... and my Dad found the partly burned handbills. He marched me back down to the grocery store to make a confession to the owner. That trip back down to that store was the longest walk I ever made." Ed Junior then goes on to explain that the value of that lesson in honesty was proven just a month later ... when the owner asked him to pass out his handbills again. Ed Gulick was firm when it came to matters of principal. And yet he was always gentle and thoughtful. Helen Louise recalls her father with these words: "He was very special to me and he has left me with nothing but happy memories. Even when I did not please him, he stood by me ... and I always knew that he loved me. I'll never forget his wonderful sense of humor ... his smile ... his unselfish, forgiving heart ... and his ability to make home such a happy place. But most of all, I remember the Sunday I accepted Jesus as my savior. I went home and told Daddy. And the next Sunday, he professed Jesus as his savior and we were baptized at the same time." Ed Gulick's youngest boy --- Gary --- remembers his father's sense of humor and quick wit. "He enjoyed a good joke, "Gary says. "He could tease someone or pull off a practical joke with the straightest face in the world. But once you got to know him, you could always see it coming ... because there'd be this big twinkle in his eyes. He was a beautiful person!" Other people will remember other things about Ed Gulick. Perhaps they'll remember how he could skin-the-cat on a tree limb or do one-armed push-ups ... even when he was well into his Sixties. Perhaps they'll remember how he often stole the show when he was playing his specially equipped musical instrument in the Kitchen Band at the church. Or how he never forgot a face and never forgot a name. Or how he always said he didn't really need a dog -- and yet he always had one tucked up beside him in his favorite chair. Or how he constantly complained about his three biggest pests: the crabgrass, the blue jays ... and the Democrats. Out of all this, one thing is absolutely and positively certain: Each of us will remember Ed Gulick warmly and with deep affection -- and he will always be a part of us, even though he is gone.
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