Edward
Wicker and family moved to 940 Fern
Street after the 1943 Directory was compiled, By the end of 1946 the
Wickers had moved to 904 Penn
Street. Edward Wicker had by this time gone to work at the RCA-Victor plant in
Camden. In the late
1950s he moved to 1104 Kaighn Avenue in South Camden. In 1961 Edward
Wicker moved in with his daughter Edna and her husband, Bob Mehmet,
where he lived out his days.
A
very-civic minded man, Edward Wicker was involved in a number of
activities in the community. Along with his older brother William he was a participant in the annual Mummers
New Years' Day parade, and he founded an Easter Parade in North Camden.
He ran dances at the Sewell School in
North Camden and also was involved
and served as president of the 210 Youth Association, which conducted a
youth baseball program for boys aged 10 to 15.
Son-in-law
Bob Mehmet wrote:
I'm married to his
Edward Wicker's daughter and we would help him at these events. He was a New Years shooter for many years he started to get a parade
together. Ed was employed at RCA and on the holidays he would dress up as George Washington, Abe Lincoln,
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and parade around the plant. He
played Easter Bunny in North Camden
for years with a wheel barrel full with Easter candy and
would hand it out to the kids in the streets. He also played Santa Claus and ran a dance in
Sewell School
on Friday nights for the kids around 7th and
Vine.
Edward
Wicker was the president of 210 Youth Association. These kids played baseball in
a league with other teams in North Camden
on 10th
street, between Pearl
and Elm
Streets. The kids seemed to be around 10-15. The boys on the team that won the most games got
trophies at the end of the summer. There wasn't a lot of money, but they got some of the local business to donate so they could have
tee-shirts with names. The dances on Friday night at Sewell School , they gave prizes to the best dancers and the money collected went to the Little
League,
and no kid was turned away if they had no money to get in the dance.
Edward
H. Wicker eventually, like many others, moved out of North Camden. He
retired from RCA-Victor, where he had worked for many years, and spent
his last days as a resident of Collingswood, New Jersey. Edward H.
Wicker passed away on August 7, 2000.
Ed
Wicker enjoyed every minute of his activities, be it the Mummers,
playing the the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, running the dances and the
210 Youth Association, and playing other roles in costume. He also
enjoyed dancing and the seashore. His family remembers that he would
always say three words whenever one of these activities would conclude,.
"That was great!". One could very well say that Ed Wicker's
greatest legacy is his example of a life well lived, when one looks back
and says "That was great!"
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