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Edwards, left, with daughter April Brame and son Raymond Edwards, Jr.
Left: Edwards with the 1960 General Motors bus he converted to a luxury RV during the late 1980s. Right: Edwards and his daughter April Brame enjoy an ice cream cone.
Edwards and his daughter April Brame enjoy an ice cream cone.
Edwards in the U.S. Army in 1954.
MAYODAN — Raymond Edwards found the way to build a rich and happy life. Then he made the tools.
Gifted with ravenous curiosity and unmatched ingenuity, the Stoneville native converted a vintage bus into a luxury RV, filtered corn oil through an old pant leg to brew hybrid fuel, and cobbled together a golf cart from scrap aluminum he scavenged from an old Mayodan bank sign.
In an economy where most folks look for gadgets on Amazon to instantly replace broken items, Edwards enjoyed solving fix-it riddles, friends said. And they often turned to him for help.
Just a few years back, a buddy, flummoxed about how to bear-proof his daughter’s Asheville trash can, drove up to Edwards’ Mayodan Mountain home for an assist. An hour later, the friend drove back down the mountain with a solution — a mammoth metal hinge Edwards cut and welded impromptu.
A trained machinist and career welder for DuPont in Martinsville, Va., Edwards was known for building the very tools he needed to make the projects he had in mind.
Those tools, in turn, helped him convert a 1960 General Motors bus to a top of the line 35-foot motor home he drove on his path to delight — the open road.
Known for stopping at flea markets and bluegrass shows along the way, Edwards traveled 48 states, Canada and Mexico in his RV.
He embraced the motto: “Living the dream’’ and had the words painted on the front of his motor home.
On Tuesday morning, Edwards, 86, died when an impaired driver hit his car head on as Edwards drove north on US 220 Business toward Stoneville for a high school class reunion.
No information about the driver or disposition of the accident case was immediately available from the N.C. Highway Patrol.
Edwards’ philosophy as an inventor: “Simplicity is the key. You have to find a way to make a machine work in the simplest way,’’ he said in a 2008 interview with the Greensboro News & Record.
He extended the philosophy to his lifestyle, living simply, speaking plainly and teaching what he knew to younger folks who wanted to learn, friends said.
“Raymond was like a second daddy to me,’’ said Steve Hill of Stoneville. “Yep, he could do anything, and he loved teaching everybody and helping people. He loved to teach somebody to do something on their own ... especially kids who wanted to learn a trade or how to weld.’’
Hill, who often joined Edwards on flea market excursions across the region, said, “He collected anything. And he especially looked for anything he thought he could repurpose for something else. He saw the value in everything, and he loved taking good inventions and making them even better.’’
Edwards also had a keen interest in politics and was a staunch Democrat in Rockingham County, where GOP voters dominate, friends said.
“Raymond was a unique individual. Self-educated, he could solve a mechanical problem that would baffle 10 Ph.Ds,’’ said longtime friend David M. Spear of Madison.
“Raymond was super intelligent, kind-hearted and totally honest,’’ Spear said. “He disliked religion in general and was a strong Democrat who was never swayed by other political ideologies.’’
Edwards’ resourcefulness made for high contrast in a world where folks too often toss out broken appliances at the first sign of a glitch.
To repair a thing gave Edwards a wealth of satisfaction as he borrowed parts from junk vehicles, set up his own metal extruder or rigged solar panels on his roof, friends said.
Beyond that, he learned how to fly twin engine airplanes, rebuilt airplanes and converted engines from gasoline to diesel with ease, his friends marveled.
“He was a real good friend and probably one of the most resourceful people I knew — from working on home improvement to cars — that’s something I don’t have,’’ said Bob Crowder of Stoneville, a friend of 25 years.
“Raymond was really into politics, and Raymond and I shared that,’’ Crowder said. “He was a unique guy—kind of his own person, and he didn’t really care what other people thought.’’
Crowder joined Edwards and a small group of folks at Fuzzy’s restaurant in Madison just last week to chat over barbecue. “He paid the bill,’’ Crowder said, noting Edwards’ generosity.
Even early in life, his engineering prowess placed Edwards in some extraordinary situations: racing hotrods as a teen and working with a special military company during the 1950s, tasked with transporting behemoth church bells through Germany to replace those Nazis had melted down for their military use during World War II.
A weathered news clipping chronicles how Edwards, an Army Specialist Third Class in March 1954 and part of a handpicked team of Army engineers, helped transport five giant church bells on tank carriers from a West German foundry to a church in Mannheim, Germany.
The largest bell of the group weighed 6 tons. Once the engineers arrived, they drove the bells around the church to create a circle, a tradition the German church observed before hanging the huge chimes.
A lover of Volkswagens, Edwards found fellow admirers of the German autos and met up once monthly in Greensboro for VW talk at Herbie’s restaurant, a diner with decor that pays homage to the Volkswagen Beetle character popularized in the Disney movie “Herbie.” Edwards also wore a favorite VW logo ball cap most of the time.
A devoted family man, Edwards had three children, including April Brame and Raymond Edwards, Jr., both of Stoneville. He was predeceased by a daughter Debbie E. Williams.
Family members said that during the pandemic, Edwards sold his converted bus RV and began work on a LeSharo motor home he had planned to soon take out on the road.
But friends agreed that Edwards’ life and the travels he had logged seemed to satisfy him.
“I enjoy myself,’’ Edwards told the News & Record in a 2008 interview. “Some people never figure out how to do that.’’
Contact Susie C. Spear at sspear@rockinghamnow.com, (336) 349-4331, ext. 6140 and follow @SpearSusie_RCN on Twitter.
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Edwards, left, with daughter April Brame and son Raymond Edwards, Jr.
Left: Edwards with the 1960 General Motors bus he converted to a luxury RV during the late 1980s. Right: Edwards and his daughter April Brame enjoy an ice cream cone.
Edwards and his daughter April Brame enjoy an ice cream cone.
Edwards in the U.S. Army in 1954.
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