Candace Kim Edel

This page is here, right now, to organize the memorial and remembrances of our mother (Candace) Kim Edel.

Update 2014: A public memorial for Candace Kim Edel was held Sunday 11/24 from 2-4pm, at the Community Church Of New York 40 East 35th Street – New York, NY 10016.  There is a video available for those who did not make it; please email the address below if you’d like a copy.

We are also still working out the details of a location for drinks and fellowship after the more formal gathering  Also, let us know if there is any more information you need or if you have thoughts.

To contribute memories of her to be posted, please email  ckedelmemorial (AT) gmail.com.  In the longer run, we expect that this may be used for family news, etc.

Below is the full text of her extended obituary. Thanks to all for your shared sympathies and support, we know many of you share this loss with us.

Candace Kim Edel (1943-2013)

Friday, August 30 2013, Professor Candace Kim Edel passed away peacefully to join her beloved husband Matthew in whatever is beyond this life. She leaves behind three sons Nathan Keir, Gareth, Stephan, daughters-in-laws Marie and Helene and a granddaughter Nadia.

Through her teaching, activism, and open heart she leaves many others she deeply loved – family, friends, and former students. This extended family is too extensive to list but includes a sister Bernadine, nephew David, nieces Cameron, Dana, Suzy, Trudy, and their children, her sister in law Deborah and partner Theodora, a mother in law Sima, her chosen brother David and partner Jeffrey, cousins Ellen and Joel, her children’s godmother Laurie. She loved and was loved by neighbors, colleagues, as well as the students who became part of the family including Jean-Elizabeth, Wayne, Susie, and Christina among others.

Kim to her friends, she was born in Phoenix Arizona in 1943 and spent her youth as a cowgirl in the rural west with her mother Lorraine. After high school, in Laramie WY, Kim found her way to political activism and education at UC Berkeley. Kim married Matthew Edel in 1973 and soon settled in Sunnyside, Queens.

She put her whole heart into everything. She took part in protests and social movements from the 60s until her death. She acted on the stage in San Francisco while in Berkeley, served in the Pease Corp and worked on public health in Colombia, founded the Queens College Women’s Center, taught and advised students, and devotedly raised sons even after the death of her partner.

For more than twenty years her compassion and intelligence centered on her role as professor, teaching mostly at CUNY Queens College as well as Fordham University. Her academic interests related to social justice, urban studies and sociology.  She researched and wrote about the difficulties — both medical and cultural — associated with women who chose to have children later in life, developed research on the academic experience of students, and studied the effects of poverty on cities, as well as political culture of this country.

The family can be contacted at the family home, or by email at ckedelmemorial@gmail.com.

A public memorial will held Sunday 11/24 from 2-4pm, at the Community Church Of New York 40 East 35th Street – New York, NY 10016 (directions)

The family requests that rather than flowers she be remembered with donations to organizations that support social justice. For more information or to share memories you can check www.edelfamily.com.

We previously used this site for organizing her 65th birthday; the outdated page with information is here.

You can reach most of us at forwarding addresses “name” AT “edelfamily.com” .   Thanks for coming by,

• –Nate (Nathan Keir), Gareth and Stephan