Over 4,000 Strangers Show Up at Funeral for Army Veteran Who Died With No Family

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When 80-year-old Army veteran Edward K. Pearson passed away in Naples, Florida, on Aug. 31, 2019, the hospice care facility where he had been living could not locate any immediate family members. As Jeffrey Nieves, family services counselor at the Legacy Options Funeral and Cremation Services, told People, “We had had him in our care for a month and had made every due diligence call to contact family and nobody came forward.”

It was his obituary in the Naples Daily News that caught the attention of many in the community, both those who had served in one of the branches of the Armed Forces and those civilians who felt that someone who had served his country shouldn’t be buried alone.

Thus began a viral campaign that rallied thousands of people in the local community to become the family who would put this veteran to rest.

Not much was known about Pearson, who was born in 1939, until one of his fellow residents in hospice care managed to track down the former soldier’s military records. These showed that he served in the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1964 before being honorably discharged at the rank of Private First Class, which meant he was entitled to full honors at his funeral and eligible for burial in a national cemetery.

Funeral director Michael Hoyt of Legacy Options decided to help organize the effort to make sure that Pearson was properly honored for his service. They scheduled the funeral for Oct. 1, 2019, at the Sarasota National Cemetery, about two hours away from Naples.

“We reached out to some of the local veterans’ organizations in the county and we said we were afraid that no one would come except for us and the military honors,” Hoyt told CNN.

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This is part of the pro bono work that Hoyt does for the many homeless and indigent veterans who live in Southwest Florida. “It was really enlightening to see social media react in such a positive way,” he said. First, it was local veterans who started spreading the word; then came local businesses, like Solorzano’s Late Night Pizza, who offered a “free small cheese pizza to anyone who shows up to show this man some love” on its Facebook page.

Finally, as the campaign spread, it drew the attention of CNN news anchor Jake Tapper, who tweeted on Sept. 29, 2019, encouraging residents of Sarasota to turn up for the veteran’s funeral. Florida Senator Marco Rubio also posted a notice about the funeral online. The local police department picked up on the story and promised to send its officers to attend.

From virtually no one attending, the funeral was now expected to bring in hundreds, if not thousands, of attendees, none of whom ever knew Pearson.

It turned out that this was not the first time that Pearson had been aided by a social media campaign. One person who was able to give a little bit more information about Pearson’s backstory was Patty Thrasher, a customer service representative for the Collier County Tax Collector’s Officer. She had met Pearson after his double wide trailer had been severely damaged in 2017 by Hurricane Irma, which slammed into the Gulf Coast.

As Pearson tried to get a grant to rebuild his home, Thrasher found out that he had been the victim of a scam leaving him without a title for the lot. She went on social media to help raise donations to pay back taxes, fix the roof, and even help get a legal title for his new home. Unfortunately, before Pearson could move back in, he passed away.

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“I’m very sad that he didn’t get into his new house because he was very excited,” she told the Herald Tribune. “But I’m happy the last few months of his life people cared about him and loved him.” Thrasher expressed similar sentiments to many of those who had shared the funeral notice online. “He was an American veteran and everyone in my community rallied and was willing to help,” she said. “That’s the way our country should be.”

The funeral service itself ended up having more than 4,000 attendees, wildly outnumbering all the estimates. The traffic on the way in to the Sarasota National Cemetery was so intense that funeral director Michael Hoyt, who was carrying Pearson’s ashes, had to be escorted in by police.

It was a moving tribute for someone who had served his country.