This site wishes to pause a moment to mark the death of Edward Thompson, Jr., after 86 years on the planet. His full obituary can be read here in the Columbia Paper. I always addressed Ed as “Mr. Thompson,” because his bearing seemed to harken back to an earlier era where younger people addressed their elders more formally and respectfully.
Mr. Thompson was elected Alderman for Hudson’s 4th Ward as a Republican eight times. He generally remained quiet and seemingly bemused as he sat on the right hand side in the back (from the audience's point of view) behind the Council balustrade, near the City Clerk. He could be counted on to provide a second for a motion, though seldom offering ones of his own.
At the time I got to know Mr. Thompson, the Common Council was a very different place. Pretty much everyone on the Council was there because of their unquestioned and unquestioning loyalty to either the Hudson Democrats or Republicans—who were more Local Team A and Local Team B than ideological adherents to either party. Council meetings in the late ’90s were sometimes explosive affairs, and future activists started attending just to watch the sparks fly among more fiery aldermen such as Bill(y) Hart, Jim(my) Dolan, Dean(o) Melino, Carmine (Cappy) Pierro, Bob (Doc) Donahue, or Ray Simmons. Citizen engagement only arose among the attendees later, as the Council’s topics became more serious than mundane fence disputes and the dreary “reading of the bills.”
Like his contemporary Jeff Seymour of the 1st Ward, Mr. Thompson stood out among his peers as reserved and courteous. Though I was rarely on the same side of an issue as him, he was never anything but civil, and invariably would give a smiling “Hello, young man” greeting whenever we saw each other at the market on the corner of 1st and Warren. Ed was oldschool—not the type to fill the Council chambers with shouting, insults and pointed fingers. He didn’t spend meetings chewing a gigantic wad of Nicorette like some rabid squirrel, or reading prepared speeches written for him by one of the political bosses. You got the sense his mind was elsewhere, in some more pleasant and far less ludicrous place than City Hall.
It was never really clear why exactly he’d want to be an Alderman at all. A veteran, he had also served in the Army in the South Pacific, and ran linotype machines for various newspapers and printers in the area. Maybe he agreed to be an Alderman just for the health care; or maybe even he felt he owed someone the favor of service. All I can say for certain was that unlike many of his peers, Mr. Thompson comported himself like a gentleman, and he carried about him the air of an older Hudson which—while no doubt just as troubled and tawdry as the present-day—still believed in keeping up basic appearances of decorum and civility.
He’ll be missed.
