Whether he was dealing with the institutional racism of his era or hosting breakfast for a friend in his home, Edmund Carleton Brown, Sr. radiated class and grace, those who knew him said.
“He was one of those guys … a real good guy,” said Joseph Scanlon III, a former Lynn city councilor who serves on the board of directors at the Lynn Museum. “He was a real gentleman.”
“He was a very giving person,” said Darrell Murkison, secretary of the Lynn Community Minority Cultural Center, of which Brown was a founding member. “He was always looking to help people and make things better for people.
“He was a pioneer,” Murkison said.
“He was respected by all the different communities,” said Steve Rima, who owns the McDonald’s franchises on the Lynnway and at Walmart. “He was such a hard worker.”
Brown, 102, died earlier this month. He is remembered mostly for the tremendous amount of work he and his wife, Pearl, did in Lynn — and the elegant and understated way they both did it.
“It’s hard to think of him without thinking of Mrs. Brown,” said Drew Russo, who was director of the Lynn Museum from 2015 through 2019. “I remember when I got the job how warm, and kind, and gracious they were to me. It was always a joy to see them come to museum events.”
Although Brown lived in North Carolina at the time of his death, his roots in Lynn took hold early. He delivered newspapers for the Lynn Item Sunday Post (and later, in Pittsburgh, for the Pittsburgh Courier).
In the years preceding World War II, “Brownie” played baseball and basketball, and his Roxbury Panthers hoop team competed against the likes of the New York Renaissance.
He graduated from Lynn English and later the Wentworth Institute of Technology and Essex Agricultural Institute. Two days after marrying Pearl Anderson in 1942, he was off to the South Pacific to fight in World War II.
While stationed overseas, Brown was awarded the WWII Good Conduct Medal, Asiatic Pacific Theatre Campaign Ribbon, Victory Medal, and Philippine Liberation Ribbon with Bronze Service Star.
Despite his heroics, he encountered his share of anti-Black sentiment, but a few incidents stood out, Rima said.
“First, he tried to find a hotel in Lynn the night he got married, but nobody would let him check in,” Rima said. “He finally found one on Route 1 in Saugus, but it took him almost all night to find a room.
“Then, he took (Pearl) to down south for the honeymoon (when he got back from the war). He was OK until he got to Washington, and then the crew switched to a southern crew. Even though he was a veteran, they made him move to the rear of the train. He used to tell that story regularly just to show how much society had changed.”
Though he had to deal with racism, he found the best way to do that was through humor. He and Pearl owned Brown’s Cleaners, on the corner of Chestnut and Adams streets. The business was on the first floor, and the couple and their children lived on the top two stories.
“They’d scamper up and down those stairs until they were in their 90s,” Rima said.
Brown’s Cleaners dealt mainly in white linens, Rima said.
“So, the ads they ran in the newspapers said, ‘Brown’s Cleaner’s. We specialize in whites.'”
Said Scanlon: “One night, a discussion came up about the Hotel Edison, and what a happening place it was. He put it in perspective. He said ‘I don’t know about you folks, but I wasn’t allowed to walk in the front door. But I could go in the back.’ That just hit me. What a perspective.”
In spite of the racism he faced at times, Brown moved through life with an uncommon elegance and old-fashioned chivalry, Rima said.
He invited me to his house for breakfast, and I trudged up those stairs, huffing and puffing, while they stood on the landing watching,” Rima said. “When I got up there, the table was set for a king. China. Silverware. And Ed would grab the back of his wife’s chair, and push it in when she sat down. It was unbelievable.”
The organizations to which Brown belonged, and for which he volunteered, read like a “who’s who” of nonprofits. Some of them particularly stood out to Rima.
“After he was done with the cleaner’s, he wanted something to do,” Rima said. “When Walmart opened, he went down there to look for work. When they saw everything he had done, they hired him as their community relations person. For 20 years, he was the guy handing out checks to the Little Leagues, Boy Scouts, and things like that. He was the face of that store.”
Rima happened to be the owner of the McDonald’s inside the store, and the two remained friends. They put together the biographies for both Brown and his wife when they left Lynn for North Carolina to be closer to their family.
“The legacy he leaves in this city is enormous,” said Russo. “It’s hard to think about Lynn without thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Brown and the contributions they made toward making Lynn a better place.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].