Edwin Michael Drass Jr.

On Friday evening, October 30th, 2026, Edwin M. Drass Jr. passed quietly in his sleep of natural causes at the age of 102 years. He was born on June 27th, 1924 in Fairborn a suburb of Dayton, Ohio near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He graduated from Bath High School and joined the US Navy shortly after the start of World War II. He served as a seaman first class (S1C) supply clerk on the USS Monitor (LSV-5) in the Pacific theater and survived the battle of Leyte Gulf in October of 1944. Edwin returned to the United States in 1945 and married Gloria L. McCray of Clinton, Oklahoma. They were married for 33 years and raised 3 children. He worked in the aerospace industry at many defense based companies including Mc Donnell Douglas, Convair-General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin where he retired in 1987 as a senior technical buyer after 33 years of service. During that time he negotiated many major contracts with the U.S. Air Force and also orchestrated and negotiated the take-over of the Chrysler Tank Division in March of 1982. In 1978 after his divorce from Gloria, he married his high school sweetheart Janet Kenvin, also of Dayton, Ohio. They were married for 30 years until her passing in 2008. He is survived by his 3 children, Diane Alexander, Edwin M. Drass III, Jon B. Drass and stepson Ken Kenvin, as well as many grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was a self-taught engineer and a brilliant shade-tree mechanic who spent most of his retirement repairing everything from toasters to lawn mowers and resurrecting broken-down and wrecked automobiles. His wit, advice and sense of humor will be greatly missed by all.