Edward G. Bernard ’49

EDWARD G. BERNARD, Roswell, GA, died September 29, 2022, at age 100. Ed was a World War II veteran and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 as a seaman second class. Later, he became a quartermaster on an English Landing Craft Tank Rocket 373 ship, where his duties included calculating targets to launch rockets, steering the ship during times of battle, and keeping daily logs, except on D-Day, which he was ordered to leave blank. He helped launch the largest amphibious invasion in history on June 6, 1944, which began the liberation of France and laid the foundation of the Allied victory on the Western front. Following D-Day, his ship was sent to the Mediterranean to support allied troops liberating France and Italy. He was sent to Hawaii to join the fight in the Pacific, but just as his new ship sailed to Japan to join the land invasion, the war ended on May 8, 1945. Ed was awarded the WWII Victory Medal, European African Middle East Medal, Asiatic Pacific Theater Medal, and American Theater Medal. Upon his return to the U.S., Ed received his bachelor’s degree from Saint Michael’s, and achieved First Chair of the Burlington Military Band. He moved to Lima, Peru, to study ethnology at the National University of San Marcos, where he received a second bachelor’s degree in humanities. While in Peru, he became a teacher and school principal, then conducted anthropological research and became director of the Peruvian and North American Cultural Institute of Cusco. He later returned to the U.S. to earn his doctorate and acquire a master of arts degree in Spanish from the University of Arizona. He was fluent in English, Spanish, and French. In 1959, while in Cusco, he met Gloria Matilde Galimberti, an accomplished nurse and obstetrician. They courted, fell in love, and married in 1960 at the Catedral de Cusco—Basilica Cathedral of our Lady of Assumption. Ed and Gloria were married for 60 years before her passing in 2020. They shared four children, eight grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and extended family.