Gov. Ed Whitcomb remembered as adventurous yet cautious
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The funeral for former Governor Ed Whitcomb will take place on Sunday in Hayden, Indiana, the Jennings County community where he was born.
Whitcomb left a legacy that includes much more than his service as governor. He was 98 years old when he died at home Thursday in Rome, Indiana.
Elected in 1968, he served one term in the governor’s office but a recent public television documentary told how he lived an extraordinary life both before and after his service in the Statehouse.
The documentary produced by his grandson, Bryan Boyd, tells the story of how Whitcomb twice escaped custody as a prisoner of war during World War II. The first time, he swam three miles from the island of Corregidor to the Phillipines.
“The waves started picking up and the wind picked up and then it started to rain,” Whitcomb says in the documentary. “(For) a long time all I could do was tread water and think about this has to be the end of the road.”
He wrote a book about it called Escape from Corregidor and that book became the foundation of his campaign for the Statehouse.
As a Republican governor he kept a no new tax promise, a move that put him at odds with leaders in his own party.
At her northside home Friday, his daughter Trish talked about his use of a blue ribbon commission to restructure government.
“They found efficiencies and they, yet, found more money for mental health and for the highways and returning more money to local governments,” she said.
When he retired, Whitcomb flew to Greece, bought a 30 foot sailboat and sailed around the world by himself.
“It is an experience that is unique,” he said in the documentary. “It was wonderful. It was beyond description, the beauty of the sea at night.”
“He knew he wanted to be adventurous,” said Trish, “but he also knew he needed to be cautious when he was the governor of Indiana.”
In his final years he lived in a cabin above the Ohio River in Rome, Indiana after marrying his second wife Evelyn just two years ago.
There will be a public memorial service for Ed Whitcomb at the Statehouse Friday, Feb. 12.