MORE ON FRED L. REED III

Fred Leslie Reed, III, woke walking and talking once again, swinging his arms and snapping his fingers (the way he had done when he was happy) fully restored, in Heaven on 24 July, 2021. He had lived patiently and graciously while severely disabled near his daughter's family in Dallas, TX, following a life-altering massive stroke in 2013 when he suffered this final stroke.

Fred was born 21 Jan, 1948, to Fred Jr. and Maria Mühlthaler in Syracuse, NY, where his grandfather, Fred Sr. was mayor and owned Reed's Bowling Alley and Reed's Esso Station. Fred's parents had met during WW2 while Fred Jr. served in the U.S. Army (England, France, and Munich). Maria had been drafted into the Nazi army but had escaped with her life after intentionally sabotaging the parachutes she was ordered to fold. The mayor of her town, Pfarrkirchen, Germany, intervened and arranged for her to clean the housing where the American soldiers were stationed, and thus began their love story. Although Fred Jr.'s family was Baptist, he deferred to Maria's Catholic background in bringing up Fred III and his younger brother, Michael.

Remembering his early years living in Syracuse with his parents and grandparents fondly, Fred revisited those beloved sites with his children and passed those stories down to his grandchildren. As a kid, he was an avid collector of baseball cards, coins and even post marks. He would go through the trash can in the post office looking for post marks from exotic cities he hadn't collected yet. He shared his father's love of the NY Yankees and Yogi Berra, playing catcher himself in Little League, as did his father before him. In his late teens, the Reeds moved to Oklahoma City where the academic brilliance he inherited from Fred Jr. shone brightly. He graduated from Putnam City High School in 1966 and dreamed of a career writing for his favorite newspaper, Coin World.

Fred Reed and daughter Becky at coin show

Fred married Patricia DeVaney in 1970 while the two were students at OSU, shortly after enlisting in the U.S. army. He spent 2 1/2 years stationed with the 38th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in Osan, Korea, as a photographer and journalist for the army's newspaper, The Stars and Stripes. After his honorable discharge from the army, he returned to finish his B.A. in humanities at OSU and complete his Master's Degree, bringing his toddler, Becky, along to study in the library with him and arranging for her to be the youngest person ever granted a library card of her own from the OSU library. He happily worked his dream job as an editor for Coin World in Sidney, Ohio from 1975-1980, bringing Becky along to go through the sorted mail looking for unique stamps and taking her to his monthly coin collector meetings for the frozen strawberry yogurt. He encouraged her to enter competitions with him and doted when they both won their divisions.

In 1980, he moved his family to Dallas, TX, to become an editor for Probe Ministries, and to write for the Ararat Report and Christian Fitness in Business. In the late 1980s, he was writer, editor, and vice-president of Beckett Publications and wrote for numerous other newspapers and magazines throughout the rest of his career. During the 80s, he dusted off his old cameras and enrolled in college photography courses for fun with his high-school age daughter, launching her into a 25-year photography career. His incredible intelligence, exacting standards, and extensive research and writing skills honed over many decades were unleashed on her from the moment that she tested "past high school" as a 6th grader, resulting in a self-driven, overachieving spelling bee winner, state competition winner, Valedictorian with two Bachelors Degrees cum laude. Fred was the greatest encouragement and influence in his daughter's life and took great pride in her accomplishments, most notably, her three children. In fact, Fred's pride in his grandfather, Fred Sr., and the mysterious void of not knowing anything about his parentage or where he came from is what ignited Rebecca's curiosity and career change into professional genetic genealogy in 2010.

Fred had always been intrigued by the stories that his namesake had changed his name and run away from home to become the larger than life figure he was to his family and community. Fred thrilled with every discovery as Rebecca pulled his family history together, especially when learning that his own ancestor, James Louis Reed (no, grandfather had NOT changed his name), had run away from home in PA to MD to lie about his age so he could fight in the Civil War like his 4 older brothers were doing. In fact, the Reed line in PA dates back to David Reed born in 1700 in Ireland. None of this would ever have been known to him or his family had it not been for his fondness for his grandfather and his sharing that plus his research skills with his daughter, Rebecca.

He was awarded a U.S. Army Commendation Medal for his journalism and "contributions to the modern volunteer Army." He was also honored by Continental Army Command, Army Times, and the joint services Defense Information School. In 2015, Fred was elected to the Society of Paper Money Collectors' Hall of Fame. The American Numismatic Association awarded him a Presidential Award (2011), First Place Literary Award (2008), and the Raymond Award for original and comprehensive research in U.S. numismatics (2008), 3 consecutive Sheehan Literary Awards for Paper Money Studies (2008-2010). The Society of Paper Money Collectors awarded him 2 Lifetime Achievement Awards for concrete/scientific contributions to the hobby (1996, 2001), 3 Awards of Merit (2000, 2006, 2012), the first Forrest Daniel Literary Award (2007), the Wismer Memorial Award for "Book of the Year" twice (2010, 2013) and 4 literary awards for articles in Paper Money. The Token & Medal Society honored Fred with its First Place Schenkman Literary Award and a special Presidential Award. The Numismatic Literary Guild has conferred 42 awards on him and the list goes on.... He has won dozens of exhibit awards at the local and national level, including the Bank Note Reporter's "Most Inspirational "Award. Fred has been a featured speaker at numismatic conventions across the country.

A journalist for more than 40 years, Fred was employed on the staffs of daily, weekly, monthly and annual publications in 5 states and the Republic of Korea. His positions have ranged from photographer, compositor, and proof reader to Editorial Director and VP of Publishing. He is the author or co-author of 16 books and editor of 9 more. He has published several thousand news/feature/research articles in periodicals. In addition to his numismatic writings, he wrote extensively on his other loves, Lincoln, the Civil War, and Christianity.

Fred will be buried with full military honors 4 Oct, 2021, at the D/FW National Cemetery at 10 a.m. Golden Gate Funeral Home. Condolences may be sent to the Taylors at PO Box 572022, Dallas, TX 75357, who will appreciate any remembrances you may wish to send or notifications of other memorials for Fred that may find. In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution for his son-in-law, Mark, who has sustained a severe traumatic brain injury and quadriplegia: https://gofund.me/da8628b9.

To read the complete article, see:
FRED, THE CELEBRATED AUTHOR AND LECTURER (https://www.thegenealogyguru.com/in-memoriam-fred-l-reed-iii/fred-the-celebrated-author-and-lecturer)

"I read with sorrow the notice of the death of my one-time Coin World colleague Fred L. Reed III. Wasn't it Robert Frost who penned the line "Two paths diverged in a wood..." Fred and I left Coin World one week apart. I went into cataloging for auctions, he to pursue compilation of text books for a Texas-based ministry before his eventual return to numismatic writing and research.

Fred never received adequate recognition for the work. I think of his masterful work on Massachusetts inventor John Gault and his Encased Postage Stamps of the Civil War era. When I protested the inadequacy of this book's recognition by the Numismatic Literary Guild, I was told "It sounds like just another dry book," Confessing in effect that no NLG judge even opened its cover! Dry it was NOT!"

"Many, many years ago I met him for the first time at a Memphis International Paper Money Show. Sometime during the show we said hello to each other and started talking about our numismatic interests. We had radically different interests, to say the least. But the interesting part for me was that he collected anything about President Lincoln. It was a time when I was buying common world notes for 5 to 10 Cents each and U.S. dealer junk boxes with mostly world coins in them at $8 per pound. I would put world coins and paper money in a baggie and hand them out at my International Bank Note Society/Numismatics International club table to potential YNs.

"Some of the paper and metal objects were not ever legal tender but token and/or medallic pieces which I set aside for collectors of such things. They would go through the box of them I brought along with me. They often got very excited about a piece. One old collector went crazy about a New Jersey token I remember that came from a box I bought from a Maryland coin shop dealer. It was the missing denomination on paper that he had predicted many years prior to finding it in my box which had to exist. I knew there were also President Lincoln items in the box and I brought Fred to the table to see them. He actually found several he did not own or know about! From then on, I would immediately mail to him any President Lincoln piece I found. He was often ecstatic about what I sent him and he would send me an email to thank me.

"I was in contact with up to around 2014 or so but then he fell ill and I was no longer able to correspond with him or see him at Memphis. There have been very few numismatists like Fred but I hope I run into more like him in the future. "

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
FRED L. REED III (1948-2021) (https://www.coinbooks.org/v24/esylum_v24n38a04.html)