Professor Dick Edwards
Dick was born in Carrizozo, NM. His father, Dr. William B. Edwards was an MD who contracted Tuberculosis and had to go to a high elevation. His father died in 1918 when Dick was not one year old. He was raised by his mother, Virginia Edwards, and grandmother, Bessie Edwards. He had one brother, William Burwell Edwards who was two years older.
The family moved to Los Angeles. Dick attended Los Angeles High School where he skipped a grade. He went on to UCLA where he earned a degree in mathematics, then to CalTech in mathematics and physics and to Illinois Institute of Technology where he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. In Chicago he met his wife, Polly Edwards.
He worked for Goodyear designing controls for blimps in Ohio, then for the Navy on weapons during WW II. He worked at Hughes Aircraft Company as a senior scientist on space programs and was credited by the program manager of the Surveyor program for saving the first moon lander due to his analysis of the fuel system. He later became a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). While there he continued to consult at Hughes.
He died of lung cancer in 1993 and is survived by his wife, Polly, sons John Richard Edwards, Robert William Edwards, David James Edwards, and daughter Christine Elizabeth Edwards. He also had six grand children, Rob Gerson, Jesse James Edwards, Roxanna Monika Edwards, Darwin Qmars Edwards, Mark Edwards, and Elizabeth Edwards. He was buried at sea off the coast of Palos Verdes by two of his sons.
John Edwards 
