Edward F. Amond  

Amond, Edward F.
January 16, 2009
indystar.com

Edward F. Amond 77, of Indianapolis, passed away January 14, 2009. He was a realtor for many years. Edward was an active skier and dancer. Survivors include his children, Doug (Susie) Amond and Kim Amond- Wright; sister Joanne (Dan) Kennedy; former wife, Shirley Drews Amond; two grandchildren; and a great granddaughter. Friends may call from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday, January 17, at G. H. Herrmann Madison Avenue Funeral Home, 5141 Madison Avenue. Memorial contributions may be made to: Quest for Excellence. 2051 N. College Ave., Indianapolis, Indiana, 46202. A memorial service will be held at a later date in Culver , Indiana. Online condolences may be shared with the family at: www. ghherrmann. com

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Edward F. Amond
Jan 14th, 2009 by ghherrmann

June 21, 1931 - January 14, 2009

Edward F. Amond, 77, of Indianapolis, passed away on January 14, 2009.

He was a realtor for many years. Edward was an active skier and dancer.

Survivors include his children, Doug (Susie) Amond and Kim Amond-Wright; sister, Joanne (Dan) Kennedy; former wife, Shirley Drews Amond; two grandchildren; and a great granddaughter.

Friends may call from 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at G.H. Herrmann Madison Avenue Funeral Home, 5141 Madison Avenue.

Memorial contributions may be made to: Quest for Excellence, 2051 N. College Ave., Indianapolis, Indiana 46202.

A Memorial service will be held at a later date in Culver , Indiana.

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Life of fun-loving child of the Maxinkuckee will be celebrated this month Thursday, 11 June 2009 By Jeff Kenney Citizen editor

When Eddie Amond passed away this past January 14 at the age of 78, one of the most direct links was lost to one of Culver and Lake Maxinkuckee’s most beloved and cherished icons, the Maxinkuckee tour boat, which -- as many Culverites will recall – ferried countless thousands of visitors and locals around the beauties of the lake for more than three decades (see article this issue).

Amond’s daughter, Kim Amond Wright of Culver , noting her father “died in the middle of a blizzard,” knew he wouldn’t have wanted his life celebrated in the depths of winter at the place he treasured the most, Lake Maxinkuckee. So Kim Amond Wright and her family are planning what they intend to be a gala celebration of his life Saturday, June 27, beginning from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bonine-Odom funeral home in Culver and continuing in a most fitting locale: Culver ’s town park, from 1 p.m. “until whenever,” she smiles. The hope, she adds, is to parade from the funeral home down Lake Shore Drive to the park with a band and jubilant crowd of her father’s friends, family, acquaintances, and any and all who care to come along.

“He wanted a party,” Amond Wright says of the planned “celebration of life.” As those who knew him can attest, Eddie Amond mixed hard work with an exuberant love of fun, especially during his Lake Maxinkuckee days.

Eddie was the son of Frank and Emma Amond who owned the 5 & 10 cent store on Main Street during their early years in Culver . Frank’s real love was the lake and he wanted to be on it. Frank became the longtime captain of the Maxinkuckee boat in 1941, which he’d purchased two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eddie was just ten years old.

Young Eddie attended school in Culver , peppering his teenage years with a boys’ dream of parties and fun lived atop the waves of the lake befriended by the young men summering around the lake and instructors at Culver Academies’ summer school, recalls Eddie’s former wife, Shirley. “They had a cabin cruiser called the Funster,” she says. “I think that’s where the parties started. And they had Chris Crafts (wooden speedboats).”

Amond earned a business degree at St. Joseph College before returning to Culver and meeting his future wife Shirley Drews, then a hostess at the Culver Inn; the two were married June 10, 1961. Along the way, says Kim Amond Wright, her father Eddie was disappointed when his childhood polio prevented him from serving in the Korean War. He swam frequently and lifted weights to prevent muscle deterioration and deformities, even swimming across the lake at least once.

Eddie and his father, along with a Florida-based partner, formed Gold Coast Industries, through which Frank Amond manufactured Awnings by Amond, which Eddie sold and installed, recalls Shirley. The business, which for a time included a downtown storefront on the east side of South Main Street, operated for about a decade ending around 1970, During this time Eddie, Shirley, and children Kim and Doug were living at 802 Lake Shore Drive overlooking the town park.

This was a convenient location. Recalls Shirley, “Eddie and I were in the park every Sunday to help. I sold tickets and Eddie drove one of the speedboats. By that time Eddie’s mom had had several strokes and was no longer able to work in the business.

Besides the Maxinkuckee boat, in earlier days the Amonds’ operation – which launched from a pier just west of the town park swimming pier– included a fleet of Chris Crafts, the “Shark Speed Boats.”

“Everybody would ask for Eddie’s mother (to drive the Chris Craft),” notes Shirley, alluding to the breakneck pace at which Emma Amond piloted the boats. “She was a real thriller! Of course Eddie was driving some, too.”

Eddie Amond was active, says Kim, in the Plymouth Country Club as well as the Maxinkuckee Yacht Club. He remained active in the summertime even after he and Shirley moved to Indianapolis in 1970 so she could pursue her rising career in special education (retired today, she is chairman of the board for Indianapolis’ School for the Blind). Eddie became involved in real estate there.

He was also instrumental, recalls Shirley, in bringing the Jaycees to Culver , an organization whose impact locally was massive despite its nonexistence here today. There, Eddie worked closely with well-known local names like Ron Tusing and Latham Lawson. Besides active involvement in the South Bend Toastmasters, Eddie was also “very much into politics, even at that stage in Culver ,” notes Shirley.

“We did a lot of campaigning with Doc Bowen and some of the fellows running for the federal level Senate and Legislature. He really enjoyed that aspect of his life, even after we moved to Indianapolis.”

Through the years, in addition to involvement in Indianapolis in skiing and dancing clubs, Eddie Amond continued to visit Lake Maxinkuckee, even after the Maxinkuckee tour boat was dry docked one last time in 1976. Frank Amond was too ill to pilot it anymore and the demand for cruises on it diminished as American entertainment and travel altered. Frank Amond passed away July 31, 1983 at his daughter’s home in Florida where he lived for his last couple of years with Dan and Joanne Kennedy and family.

The stories live on, and are recalled with fondness by the Amond family. Stories like the time Eddie “borrowed” Culver ’s Lake Patrol boat as a young man and turned the siren on while approaching the Funster boat with his sister on it. Or cruising the lake with musicians playing onboard (as often was the case) and hearing a trumpet player on the shore who was immediately asked onboard to add to the fun. Shirley recalls a night when John Cleveland, piloting the Maxinkuckee, threw it in reverse to escape skinny dippers in front of them…or the time the east shore pier went down with a number of couples – having just exited the Maxinkuckee – on it. “Of course the women were screaming,” says Shirley, “and all these guys who probably should not have been jumping overboard were jumping in (to save them), and the water turned out to be only up to their knees! I am sure there are many more stories that Eddie’s friends could tell. Hopefully we will hear some more of them as we celebrate his life.”

“Eddie just loved Culver and loved the lake,” says Shirley. “Every chance he had he’d be there…he was an interesting guy, and he loved to have fun.”

Kim Amond Wright concurs. “Culver and Lake Maxinkuckee was (Eddie’s) whole life. He loved it here. He was big fish in a little pond here and like a lot of us, I think he felt comfortable here. A lot of people think this place is magical, and he was one of them.”