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Edward Foley, former IBEW Local 98 president, has died at 86

He led the union for nine years, beginning in the late 1980s. A stickler for rules and procedure, he served as a parliamentarian for large meetings.

Edward Foley, 86, of Linfield, a former president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, died on April 7.
Edward Foley, 86, of Linfield, a former president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, died on April 7.Read moreCourtesy of the family

Edward Joseph Foley Sr., 86, of Linfield, Montgomery County, a parliamentarian, electrician, and former president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, died Friday, April 7, of lung disease at his home.

Mr. Foley, known as Ned to his family and Ed to his work colleagues, spent his entire life in the Philadelphia region. He was born in Havertown, the youngest of 14 children, and graduated from Haverford High School in 1955. He and his wife of 60 years, Frances Foley, raised their four children in Audubon, Montgomery County.

After graduating high school and serving in the Army for a couple of years, Mr. Foley became an apprentice with the IBEW in 1959. He became the local’s president in 1988, and served in that role for nine years, until he retired in 1997.

“When he walked in the room, he lit up the room with his smile,” nephew Ted Powers said. “Growing up, I always looked up to him and respected him.”

His wife said Mr. Foley was a constant learner. While he wasn’t able to go to college after his time in the Army, she said, he later attended night school at the Comey Institute of Industrial Relations at St. Joseph’s University, to get a formal education in labor relations. When he became the Local 98 president, he took classes at the University of Pennsylvania to learn how to fulfill those leadership duties, she said.

“When he ran the union, he wanted to do it the right way and follow parliamentary procedure,” Frances Foley said. “Whatever he was asked to do, he went all heart in doing it.”

A stickler for official procedure, Mr. Foley later taught parliamentary law at St. Joe’s for more than two decades, his wife said. He was a registered parliamentarian — a person who helps run large meetings according to specific guidelines — and a member of the Pennsylvania Parliamentarian Association and National Association of Registered Parliamentarians.

“He taught many, many big people in Philadelphia to learn how to run meetings,” Mrs. Foley said. “He loved that.”

Mr. Foley sued IBEW Local 98′s pension fund in 1998 over a dispute regarding whether his first 12 years as a union electrician could count toward his pension, given that he took a decade-long hiatus from electrical work while he was employed by his family’s tire company. He originally won the lawsuit, with the court ordering that IBEW pay him nearly $100,000 plus legal fees of $122,000, but the union appealed and the court ultimately reversed that order.

His wife acknowledged the lawsuit and said her husband chose not to remain involved with the union after he retired, but he maintained friendships with some union members.

In retirement, Mr. Foley spent much of his time golfing with his wife and their golf group, as well as visiting his four grandchildren. With two grandchildren on the East Coast and two on the West Coast, the couple spent their winters in Palm Springs, Calif. They drove across the country every January for 17 years, Frances Foley said, and stayed until May.

During the summers, the West Coast grandchildren would visit their grandparents on the East Coast, and the entire family would take trips to the Shore and into Philadelphia. For the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary, they took the whole family to Disney World.

“His children and grandchildren were his whole life,” his wife said.

In addition to his wife, children and grandchildren, Mr. Foley is survived by one sister and many nieces and nephews.

Services were held April 13 at St. Denis Church in Havertown.

Donations in his name may be made to the American Lung Association.