“EDWARD JAMES WARE entered college in July, 1877, after preparing under a private tutor at Sing Sing (now Ossining), New York, and graduated with the class of 1881. He was born June 16, 1859, in New York City, his father Enoch Richmond Ware being a native of Winterport, Maine, and his mother, Mary Coutant (Peck) Ware, of New York City. His father was of New England stock, and was descended from Robert Ware, one of the early settlers of Dedham; while on his maternal side he traced his descent from the French Huguenot family of Coutant, and the Dutch family of Varian.
Ware received his early education in the Peekskill (N.Y.) Military Academy and the Irving Institute at Tarrytown. At college, owing to his coming from schools which few, if any, of his fellow students attended, and to his modest and retiring disposition, he did not at first make a wide circle of friends. All who knew him, however, liked him, and appreciated his amiable and genial nature and the sterling traits of his character, and this was attested by his election to the Hasty Pudding Club in his junior year.
Immediately after graduation Ware started upon his life work, and thereafter his interests and activities were centered in his profession. He entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City in the fall of 1881, from which he graduated with the degree of M.D. in 1885, being compelled to intermit his studies for a period owing to difficulty with his eyes. He served on the medical staff of Mount Sinai Hospital from June, 1885, to December, 1886. His residence for twenty-three years was at No.121 West 91st Street, and his practice from the beginning was on the upper west side of New York City. For the last four years of his life he resided at 151 West 73rd Street. For several years he was instructor and lecturer in the Department of Diseases of the Lungs and General Medicine at the New York Polyclinic and was assistant attending physician to the Out-Patient Department of Roosevelt Hospital. He was also attending physician at Bellevue Hospital. Besides these positions, he was attending physician to St. Luke’s Home and for eighteen years physician to the Old Ladies’ Home at Amsterdam Avenue and 104th Street — all in New York City.
From 1889 to 1904 Ware was a vestry man of St. Michael’s Protestant Episcopal Church and from the latter date to his death a warden of that church. He devoted a large part of his time and energies to the poor and was one of the founders and at his death the head of the Bloomingdale Clinic, one of that church’s charities.
He was a member of the Harvard Club of New York from the time of his graduation. He was also a member of the New York Academy of Medicine, the New York State and County Medical Associations, a fellow of the American Medical Association, a member of the Mount Sinai Hospital Alumni Association, of the New York Pathological Society, and of the West end Medical Society, of which he was one of the founders and the second president.
Ware married on October 4, 1888, Caroline Lent Barlow, daughter of William H. and Catherine S. Barlow, of Sing Sing. Mrs. Ware died March 17, 1903. leaving him with three young children, — Edward Richmond, born March 25, 1892; William Barlow, born March 20, 1895; and Catherine, born May 27, 1902, — all of whom survive him. His eldest son was graduated from Williams College in 1913, a Phi Beta Kappa man, with the degree A.B., and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons with the degree of M.D., standing second in his class. He entered the army as an assistant surgeon, and is still serving as a medical officer with the rank of first lieutenant. Ware’s second son, William Barlow,also a student at Williams, enlisted for the European was and served in the navy.
Ware has an ample and successful practice and was greatly beloved by his patients. He was especially skilled in the treatment of children’s diseases; and all children that he attended loved him for his genial and sympathetic bearing, and his visits were looked forward to by them with delight. He was a devoted friend and physician, never sparing himself or his time. He was one of that great class, — of which ’81 believed it has many exemplars and of which Harvard can well feel content to have graduated — not brilliant or showy, but of solid attainments, a faithful Godfearing man, zealous and punctual in his duties, a devoted father, a man of clean and upright life, generous and kindly to others, a good citizen; in short, a man justly held in the highest regard by all who knew him, either socially or professionally.
Dr. John P. Peters, his rector, patient and ultimate friend, and himself a distinguished scholar, clergyman, and man of letters, thus writes of him.:
‘Dr. Edward James Jame was my family physician, and had been such at the time of his death for twenty-seven years. We were very distantly connected. His family carries in every generation a Richmond in that name; so do mine — both derived from the dame Richmonds of Rhode Island. His father and my father were friend and acquaintances, and from boyhood I have known the family, although Edward James was so much younger that I that he was not quite a playmate. In the days of my boyhood they lived on 37th Street, just off Fifth Avenue, and we up in old Bloomingdale, the section of New York on the West side of the city along the Hudson, below the Manhattan Valley.
He was one of the handsomest men that I knew, and his wife equally handsome. They were a fascinating pair. I, astheir rector, knew their home life intimately. He, as my physician, knew my home intimately. He was one of my dearest and closest friends, and such a good companion! I enjoyed nothing more than having him as a dinner guest, or going off with him into the country for a day, or having hims spend an evening with me in my study. Indeed his medical calls became social events, he spent so much time with us. He always had such good stories. My children were devoted to him. As one of the vestrymen of the church and later as one of the wardens, he was one of my pillars in my work at St. Michael’s, and his death was a terrible blow to me, personally and officially.’
He retained his vitality and youthful appearance until the end of his life. On September 29, 1918, he retired at his usual hour. He had bee slightly ailing for some weeks, and knew that his heart was not strong, but kept at his work and seemed to his friends in his usual vigor. He failed to respond when called in the morning, and it was discovered that he had died in his sleep.
His funeral at St. Michael’s Church, which he served for thirty years, was attended by a large throng of mourning friends, and his colleagues in the vestry and his professional brethren acted as his pall-bearers.
Ware is a distinct loss to his community and will be greatly missed by all those, whether rich or poor, whose pains he soothed and whose spirits he cheered. And w here record our sorrows that our classmates, while still at the height of his usefulness, has been called to join those others of our comrades who have passed over to the other side. E.D.H.”
Source: 4oth Anniversary Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1881 of Harvard, by Harvard Class of 1881, The University Press, Cambridge, 1921, pages 259-262.
