He attended the last class of the Western Pennsylvania University before it became the University of Pittsburgh. He was a founding member of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Engineering in 1909.
Edgar Carl Cannon married Violet Jessie Burke on January 31, 1919. They had one son, Daniel Willard Cannon, who had one son, David Price Cannon (standing), who had one son, Jesse Rhys Cannon. Violet was a teacher at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind in Pittsburgh. She preceded him in death in 1964.
Edgar, who was known as E.C. Cannon or "Red" Cannon, because of his hair, moved to Donora, Pennsylvania to work in the mill and later became Yard Superintendent at America Steel and Wire, the Donora works of U.S. Steel Corp.
During the 1940 Census, Edgar, Violet and Dan resided at 216 10th Street, Donora. St. Louis Cardinal baseball player Stan Musial grew up in the house behind them. In 1948, a killer smog took the lives of four dozen residents, but Edgar who smoked unfiltered Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes, claimed he was little effected.
Edgar was a member of the Donora St. John's Episcopal Church, the Aliquippa Lodge 375 Free and Accepted Masons of McKeesport, Valley of of Pittsburgh Consistory, Syria Temple of Pittsburgh, and the Donora Lodge 1265, BPO Ellks, where he also served as an exalted ruler.
In the 1950s, the couple moved to Monongahela, Pennsylvania. After his wife passed as a result of endometrial carcinoma with general metastasis, he moved to Montclair, New Jersey where Daniel lived with his family. Edgar's grandchildren always enjoyed how he would demonstrate his pleasure for an achievement by saying, "Someone in the crowd yelled, 'Hooray for Barbara'" (or one of her siblings).
Edgar had one sister, Sarah Margaret Cannon,who never married and lived at the family home in Duquesne, Pennsylvania where she died of arteriosclerotic heart disease; malnutrition; and congestive heart failure.
In his later years, Edgar's goal was to make enough in the stock market to pay his taxes. A Republican, he frequently pointed out the growing national debt and laughed at the ineptitude of politicians.
He died at 8 a.m. June 8, 1980 at Capitol Hill Hospital in Washington, DC where he had resided several blocks away (on North Carolina Ave.) from the Capitol Hill address of Daniel Willard Cannon and Ann Price Cannon who had moved there in the 1970s. Cause of death was respiratory failure due to severe emphysema and hypertension, congestive heart failure, and diguria.
James A. Rabe Funeral Home handled the services when Edgar Carl Cannon was interred next to Violet at Temple of Memories Mausoleum at Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Daniel, who suffered respiratory failure and congestive heart failure as well as advanced diabetes, is now interred there as well, several feet away, down to the left.
Edgar loved poetry and wrote some in his 80s. A favorite author was Rudyard Kipling, who responded to a letter from Edgar in 1935 with the following typed note:
CALIFORNIE PALACE
Cannes
April 28/35
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for yours from
Donora of the 11th.
I most fervently hope that your knowledge of
engineering is more extended and practical than
mine. I live on a farm with a brook, and a
mill in it, and have made experiments both with
land and running water which make me blush to
look at after 20 years. I have tried all sort
of things short of making water run uphill!
But it is good and comforting to know that Iwhat
I have written has amused and interested you,
and I am grateful that you wrote to say so.
Very sincerely yours
Rudyard Kipling
