Edgar C. Grimes Jr., Korean War Veteran

Edgar C. Grimes Jr., who had cancer, died on June 20 at the Good Samaritan Lutheran Health Care Center in Delmar, N.Y. He was 87 and had been ill for about six months.

A Korean War veteran, he had served as a sergeant in an Army hospital pharmacy in Tokyo from 1949 to 1952. After settling in Spring Valley, N.Y., he worked for 40 years as a supervisor at Lederle Laboratories in Pearl River, N.Y., which made vitamins, steroids, and antibiotics.

Mr. Grimes’s family said he “was a talented and meticulous carpenter” who spent weekends repairing furniture and working on houses in the Rockland County area. He enjoyed gardening and was at odds with the upstate deer until he decided “to let the deer win and installed a salt lick in his backyard,” they said. The family house was known to have the best sledding hill in the neighborhood.

He was born in Montauk on Aug. 14, 1929, one of six children of Edgar C. Grimes and the former Cecilia Pitts. He grew up and went to school there and graduated from East Hampton High School with the class of 1948. He and his future wife, Jacqueline Murray, met in Montauk when she and two friends were there for a visit. It was a case of three brides for three brothers: Ms. Murray’s friend Susan Dean married one of Mr. Grimes’s brothers and Sue Dean’s younger sister married another. He and his wife-to-be became engaged before he was deployed. They married on Dec. 27, 1952, after he had returned from the Korean War. Mrs. Grimes survives.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Grimes is survived by his brothers, Vincent Grimes of Montauk, Daniel Grimes of East Hampton, William Grimes of Pennsylvania, and Charles Grimes of North Carolina. His only sister, Marie Short of Long Island, and his son Timothy Grimes died before him. A daughter, Linda Grimes-Picarazzi of Selkirk, N.Y., a son, Mark Grimes of Lexington, Ky., many nieces and nephews, and three grandchildren also survive.

The family received visitors on June 26 at Higgins Funeral Home in New City, N.Y. A funeral Mass was said later that morning at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Spring Valley. Mr. Grimes was buried at the Frederick Loescher Veterans Memorial Cemetery there.

The family has suggested memorial donations to United Hospice of Rockland, 11 Stokum Lane, New City 10956 or Community Hospice of Albany, 445 New Karner Road, Albany 12205.