My parents’ long-time neighbor passed away last week. Alexander Edwards was a well-known and skillful brickmason, one of the last of a multi-generational family line of brickmasons and other building tradesmen that began when carpenter Julius F. Freeman Sr. sent his sons O.N. and Julius F. Freeman Jr. to famed Tuskegee Institute. The Freeman brothers’ maternal first cousins Benjamin A. Harris Sr. and Harry B. Harris followed them into the masonry trades and, eventually, Ben Harris’ sons and nephew, Alex Edwards, took up the trowel.

Mr. Edwards was a fine neighbor and my father’s great friend, a loving husband and father, a dapper dresser, and a craftsman of the old school. May he rest in peace.

Photo courtesy of http://www.carronsfuneralhome.com.