Edmund Bradley Webber

Our father was a country song. He has gone to “rest high on that mountain,” his “work on earth is done.”

Edmund Bradley Webber, 76, of Sutton, Vermont, passed away in the early morning hours of November 30th, 2023.

Dad, who was born on June 17th, 1947, grew up in East Haven, Vermont with his parents Archie L. Webber, Sr. and Elsa M. Webber, his older brother “Pete,” his older sisters Ruth and Charlene, and his younger brother, Dwight. He was “raised on country sunshine,” with barn chores, haying, snow shoveling, cutting wood, gardening, fishing, and hunting occupying his days. Tragedy struck early for Dad, he was just 8 years old when Pete was murdered; a defining moment in his life that was never far from his thoughts.

In his early twenties he and our mother, Lena (nee Rivers), swore “I’ll love you til I die,” headed to the “chapel of love” and got married. Eventually, the three of us came along. There were some good times and some rough times, but Dad kept the wise-cracks coming and there was always a country song playing in the background.

As kids we lived in East Haven and Dad liked to hang out with his “friends in low places,” his brothers-in-law, Scott and Robert Rivers. They liked a “cold beer on a Friday night,” swearing, smoking cigarettes, and “fixing” cars. Looking back, it seems like maybe they were putting together Johnny Cash’s Psycho-Billy Cadillac, “one piece at a time.” When Mom wasn’t home Dad had a way of pacing the house, singing along to the record player in his Conway Twitty growl. Sometimes, when Faron Young came on he would stand still, look really seriously at us and then sing, “Hello, walls / How’d things go for you today?” and then give us that old Eddie grin. Our “daddy was a pistol,” and those days in East Haven reside in our minds as “precious memories” that “fly across the lonely years.”

Eventually Dad and Mom went their separate ways. Life was less “I’ll love you til I die” and more, “you got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em / know when to walk away and know when to run.” Dad went to Connecticut where he ended up marrying his second wife, Mona. They let “country roads take [them] home” to the NEK when they learned she had terminal cancer and she passed away in 1993. His older sister, Ruthie, passed away in 2001 and his grandson, Jason Jr., known as Little-J, passed away in 2002. Dad was “no stranger to the rain” and spent many years reading, gardening, and puttering around his home in Sutton, with his memories of joy and grief, laughter, and of “Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.”  For many years he and Carol Sue Camber shared in their joys together; they were great friends and companions until she passed away in 2021. 

Dad spent his last few years at “The Pines” in Lyndonville wishing his health would allow him to go home. He was the epitome of a “country boy can survive” but he also knew that “it all ends in a slow ride in a hearse” or maybe, in his case, an old Psycho-Billy Cadillac, and he passed away without going home again.

In the summer of 2024, we will hold a memorial service where we will sing Dad to rest with “pure sweet love” as he takes his last journey on the “wings of a snow white dove.”

Eddie’s kids: Holli Fenoff, Heidi Webber Jenkins, and Jason Webber, Sr.

Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.guibordfh.com