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Edmund Dantes Christopherson Jr. ( Missoula 1945 )

posted: Nov 3, 2020

Edmund, 55, died October 14, 1974, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of a fractured spinal column. He was attending an American travel writers convention and was swimming in the ocean when a strong wave threw him on the beach injuring him severely. He was born November 20, 1918, in Lakewood, Ohio, where his father was a high school teacher.

Edmund graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 1940. During college he became a Quaker. He refused to enter war-industry work and worked for Arthur E. Morgan and helped to set up the Celo Community in North Carolina. He was drafted into Civilian Public Service in 1943 and jumped at Missoula during the 1945 season where he made seven practice and two fire jumps.

After his discharge he made Missoula his headquarters for his free-lance writing career. He wrote primarily about Montana and the Northwest with articles appearing in the Saturday Evening Post, Holiday, This Week, Outdoor Life, Readers Digest, Popular Science, the NY Times and many others. Ed wrote several books including Westward I go Free, The Night the Mountain Fell, Behold the Grand Tetons, This Here is Montana, and Adventure Among the Glaciers.