Edwin “Ed” Banta

Edwin D. Banta, 88 of Kinnelon, died peacefully on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.  He had been a resident of Kinnelon for the past forty years.

Ed was born in Elizabeth, NJ but spent much of his youth in Ohio before moving to California as a teenager.  He started college in California, but soon dropped out when his mother was diagnosed with ALS.  He moved back to Pennsylvania to care for her and he started working in the Bedford, PA area.  He was a very bright young man and when he was about thirty-five years old, his colleagues compelled him to go back to college.  Ed was married already, and raising a family.  The idea of going back to college was daunting, but he applied to the University of Pennsylvania and was soon accepted!  Given his prior work experience, Ed was given the opportunity to sit for all the required undergraduate exams without taking a single class, and he passed with flying colors!  This allowed him to enter directly into the Master’s Degree program without first earning his Bachelor’s Degree!  He went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and was then further encouraged to go for his PhD.  At the age of forty-four he succeeded and was honored as the first UPenn PhD recipient who did not have a Bachelor’s degree!  He was extremely proud of his academic success and applied his knowledge passionately throughout his career.  Many of Ed’s colleagues admired him as a brilliant man and they were all honored to work with him.  He spent his entire career in the aerospace industry with Singer-Kearfott and later retired from BAE Systems.

Ed was passionate about music and this went well beyond just listening.  He wrote music, composed two musicals for his church (which he also produced and directed), and he sang in various church choirs over the years.  He simply loved music and was very talented.  He also loved his family and enjoyed having the whole gang around.  He was a terrible babysitter though; giving the children (and grandchildren) whatever they wanted, or allowing them to eat or do anything.  Frankly, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his family and he was kind and generous to a fault.  His heart was always in the right place.  He loved ice cream and hot dogs more than anything, and in all his eighty-eight years he never ate a vegetable.

Ed met his wife Alma on a blind date.  She was teaching at the time, and chaperoning a prom.  Ed joined her for the evening and they hit it off.  So much so that they were engaged within eight weeks and married within six months of meeting!  Alma likes to say that after their first blind date, she never got her eyesight back and has enjoyed sixty-five years of a “wonderful” marriage ever since.  In many ways they were polar opposites, but worked well together and have loved each other very much.  She will miss him dearly.

Ed is survived by his beloved wife Alma (nee Bloemker) of Kinnelon, seven children; Mary Elizabeth Mondelli and her husband Frank of Newport, RI, Mary Alma Simakowicz and her husband Gene of Ocean Grove, NJ, Mary Theresa Banta of Des Moines, IA, Mary Anne Nelson and her husband Mike of Montville, NJ, Mary Clare Clark and her husband Ray of Wayne, and Stephen Joseph Banta and his wife Paras of Herndon, VA, ten grandchildren; Jeri,Autumn,Josh, Ben, Madeline, Ray, Ryan, Rachel, Cyrus, Dariya, and one great-grandchild Jack, a sister; Mary Whittemore and her husband Ron of California, and a brother; Andy Banta and his wife Linda of California, as well as many nieces and nephews.  Ed was predeceased by his son Edwin earlier this year, and by his infant daughter Mary Madeline in 1955.

In lieu of flowers, a contribution in Ed’s memory may be made to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research (www.lustgarten.org).