Ed Feldmanis

1946  –  December 28, 2025

Memorial Service for ATI “Ed” Feldmanis’ — “Beneficent Dolphin”

ICA, room 600, February 7, 2026

Prelude:  Native American flute, played by Jim Troxel 

Welcome to the gathered group by host, Bob Sheil

Video: Ed’s Witness of Faith

Song: “How Could Anyone”, sung by Kristen Lems (joined us from Holland)

The Reading of the Eulogy by George Packard

Story Sharing: A key question will be: “What is the gift Ed has given you? 

Commendation by Grace Itter, Board Chair of People’s Church. 

Song: “Pia Jesu”, sung by Lela Philbrook

Send Out/ Benediction by George Packard

Postlude: Native flute by Jim Troxel

Spreading of Ati’s Ashes

*****

We are given gifts. We build our lives on the gifts we are given.  Our lives then become gifts to others.

Ed’s Sunday Morning Witness, May 2021

This morning we celebrate those who have completed their lives. It is Memorial Day weelend. For some it signals the beginning of summer, but for others it is a time to commune with those meaningful to us who have passed away.  Today I want to spend time thinking with you about the gifts we have been given and the gifts we give to others. While we remember those who have died, we oursleves are a living memorial. Today I want to share a few stories from my own life, hoping to open your hearts to remember those important and precious stories of your own.

It is not so easy to recapture memories of important gifts. May of us, like me, had challenging childhoods, not at all easy – memories that may be called bitter-sweet. We look back and see the good, but often there is the bad as well. Growing up is not an easy thing.

I was considered what some would call ‘homeless’. I lived in three refugee camps before I was five years old. At age five, we boarded a huge steamship and wound up in America. Here is the quick synopsis. My dad died when I was seven; I hardly knew him. Then I got kidney stones, had surgery, and spent a week in the hospital. At age twelve my mom thought she had leukemia and told me she would bring food for the table, button to consider her as my mom. As we look at our past stories, the question is, “Are we able to look past the painful parts to see the gifts that are there?”

So to continue my story, my mom was always angry or bitter about something her rambuntios son had done. I had a huge hole in my life, a father-need, and I became desperately lonely. During this time, I started having thoughts of suicde. I did everything to look for and see of someone might even have one kind word for me.

Two events saved my life. One came early on at age nine  – an event that helped me endure the assaults of my angry raging mother. I med a teacher who gave me hope. She was not my teacher, but what she said was, “Young man, I can see that you are bright. The world needs you and is waiting for your gifts.” That was a shock because it was the first nice thing that anyone had said to me since my dad died.

The second event happened when I was in junior high school, during one of the most confused and challenging times in my life. I was truly suicidal. Walking down the school hall and totally minding my own business, I was approached by a girl I did not know. She kissed me full on the lips. She liked at me and said, “I like you.” I was flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was watch he walk on down the hall. She and I were friends for awhile, and even went on a date. But after graduation, we lost track of each other. When I later thought about suidcide, I would remember that kiss. It made all the difference in continuing to live.She was at the center of my tinting when I made the decision to turn my back on suicide.

Yes, in spite of continuous warfare, my mother gave me gifts as well. One gift was how to endure a raging and angry person. At time when mom was not raging, her stories explained so much. I learned from her how she met important people. She learned from then that science and religion went together and were not enemies. There are many other small things I learned and have used my entire life. On mom’s deathbed, she apologized to me for being a bad mother. The apology meant so much. She was reaching out in love.

I helped raise threee children. They are very kind to tell me things I did for them there were important. And even though they had to struggle with a parent like me who knew little about parenting and never had good role models, they can find kind things to say to me. I have pride in them. One teaches parenting in the largest orphanage in Kentucky. Another is a public relations whiz, who is also raising a child who may never learn to speak Her patience and love are a miracle. And the third is a dentist who often give away her services, but never brags about it.

I hope these stories will raise consciousness to your own gifts. Perhaps you already know what it is you leave to others so that they in turn can use your gifts to build their own lives. Perhaps the biggest gift you and I can give is to leave those that are close to us is why living a life of father can make all the difference in the world. Whether you tell them about the great commandments, the Golden Rule, or the Beatitudes – they may make the critical difference in someone else’s life.

The gifts we are given we use to build our lives. And that becomes the gifts we give to others. 

Eulogy for Atis Ed Feldmanis

Atis Ed Feldmanis was born in Latvia and completed his life 79 years later in Chicago. He was a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a community builder and a friend.

Atis began his life during a time of strife in his homeland of Latvia.  Russia occupied Latvia after WWII, creating political chaos, installing a dictatorship, conducting persecutions, liquidating the Latvian army, establishing tribunals, and deporting the Latvian population to labor and concentration camps, collective farms and refugee camps. This strife  meant that Atis and his family had to leave their home and make a new life in three different refugee camps.

This transient life took a toll. When Atis was five years old, his family was transported by steamship with many others to make a new life as immigrants in America.  His father found work but died when Atis was seven. In grief, his mother distanced herself from her son, telling him that she could not be his mother.  Atis was alone.  But surrounded by Divine Spirit, he found his way, through the love and kindness of others. At one point it was the words of a teacher, “Young man, I can see you are bright. The world needs you.”  At another point, it was the attention of a young girl that gave him a lift.

Atis, or Ed, as he became known, was led to a life of faith.  He was part of the staff and faculty of the Ecumenical Institute; and he and his wife Sharon formed their family as part of a covenant community known as the Order Ecumenical, taking on assignments to do social justice work in the US and Japan. 

Returning to Kentucky, Ed found a professional path in real estate and property management. He was drawn to cultivate community as he sorted out how to invest his gifts to support his family and extend his care to the well-being of others. As a proud father of three daughters: Rita, Karen and Felicia, he struggled with parenting, and longed to be an attentive grandfather. He wished that he could have been a better husband to Sharon and then to Stephanie.

In his lifetime, Atis Ed took on the practice of self-reflection through his involvement in the Ecumenical Institute and the Path to Spirit men’s movement. Often devasted by his failures as a husband and father, Ed discovered that his greatest gifts were rooted in his experience of being wounded. He acted out of confidence and redirected his career, returning to Chicago, going to school in social work, and emerging as a counselor working for an agency in Uptown. He wrote a book on marriage after the pain of two divorces. He knew the power of kindness and extended that gift to others. Many of those who had to live on the streets came to know Ed as a friend who reached out to them.  Ed lived out of humility; and knew the power of being present as a passerby, a spirit brother and as a friend.

Ed greeted guests staying at the ICA Green Rise building, engaging them in conversation and making sure that they felt included and welcomed.  He participated as an active member of the GreenRise Community’s new members committee, and encouraged and invested strength and creativity in community events. 

Ed took a leadership role in the work of the ICA Archives work, doing daily work, and beckoning others across the nation to participate in sojourn weeks to move years of work forward.  Not just a participant, but rather a contributing leader, Ed Atis helped the People’s Church make a critical transition.  In the Path to Spirit work, Ed became a retreat guide who contributed and led reflective exercises; and he was a steady member over years of a group that met weekly to support men as they moved through dramatic change.

Atis Ed Feldmanis was a child of God who followed the lead of spirit.  He encouraged those around him to find their gifts and to invest those gifts in others.  He was a man who survived unspeakable cruelty to find his own strength, turning his pain into compassion for others.

His life now is whole and complete, and we have been blessed by the gift of his presence.

      *****

Remembering Ed

This morning, Sunday, December 28, Ed Feldmanis passed at his home in the GreenRise Intentional Community, Chicago. Ed was a long-time ICA staff member, a member of the GreenRise Community, and a dedicated volunteer with the ICA Global Archives program. He also was a committed member of an active, and long-standing men’s group in the greater Chicago area. Grace and peace,
          ~~  Terry Bergdall

Dear friends, I am so sorry to read of the death of Ed. I did not know his birth name of Atis. Over the years we corresponded on many topics I remember one such was his own family story and how he came from Latvia. I have Latvian  friends here so like Jo,  I think we bonded over that connection . He will be deeply missed from The Greenrise  Community and all his many friends within his networks .

          ~~  Isobel Bishop

More Memories …

I met Ed more recent than maybe most of you when I came to Chicago for ICA Board meetings. He told me his name and I told him it’s a name of a delicious medicinal fruit in the Philippines. That’s how we bonded. I sent him pictures of “atis” and one time I was able to get some real fruits and we enjoyed eating it together. May he rest in peace.

          ~~  Elsa Batica