Edward Hueber, optical firm president

During World War II, Edward K. Hueber, a Navy petty officer stationed in Norfolk, Va., helped teach sailors how to survive when cast adrift.

He appeared to know to make water a friend.

After the war, he was captain of the swim team at Yale University in the 1946-47 academic year, when it ran up a record of 13-0.

In 1946 and 1947, Yale won the championship of the Eastern Intercollegiate Swim League, a predecessor of the Ivy League.

"He was a sprinter on a four-man relay team," his wife, Josephine, said.

And, she said, "the high point of his life" was when he and his Yale team went to Havana and beat a Cuban national team in a 1946 exhibition.

On Friday, June 10, Edward Kelley Hueber, 95, president of the Kelley & Hueber optical firm from 1947 until it was sold in the early 1970s, died at his home in Penn Valley. He also had a home in Stone Harbor, N.J.

The firm, with offices near 53rd Street and Whitby Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, was founded in 1873 and made eyeglass frames and cases, his wife said.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Hueber graduated from Lower Merion High School and studied for two years at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the Navy.

At Yale, he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1947.

Mr. Hueber was national president of the former Optometric Manufacturers Association.

He was a former trustee of Salus University in Elkins Park, a successor to the Pennsylvania State College of Optometry.

And after he had a home built in Stone Harbor in the late 1950s (it is still in the family), he was in the 1960s a director of the Stone Harbor Property Owners Association.

Besides his wife, Mr. Hueber is survived by sons W. Graham and Franz III, and two grandsons. Son Christian II died in 2005.

Services are to be private.

Donations may be sent to the Yale Swimming and Diving Association at Yale Athletic Association, Box 1844, New Haven, Conn. 06508-1844.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mcconaghyfuneralhome.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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