Edwin "Ed" Albert Loder

Edwin Albert Loder, age 67, passed away on August 31, 2024. He was born on April 2, 1957, to Robert Samuel Loder and Edith Adell (Bates) Loder in Hot Springs, Montana. 

Ed grew up in Plains, MT with his older siblings Adell and Jack. Even as a young child he began to develop his talent and craftsmanship, sometimes using his siblings as a creative outlet. Once Ed ground down a hack saw blade to match the key of his brother Jack’s motorcycle to joyride while Jack was away…until their mother found out and made him turn in his “key”.

In 1969, the Loder family moved to Ronan where Ed attended and graduated from Ronan High School in 1975. Shortly after, he began working at a local auto body shop for Tom Seabase who mentioned Ed being a natural of the trade early on. 

In 1977, he married Barbara Erickson. They welcomed their daughter, Erica, in 1979 and later Gregory in 1985. They raised their family in Ronan, MT, where Ed owned and operated Collision Service for 42 years out of the shop just down the road from their family home. 

From a young age, he enjoyed working with his hands and bringing life back into old things. Ed was especially proud of the 1924 Model T that he salvaged piece by piece beginning at the age of 16; it took several years, but with a little help from the book “Henry’s Wonderful Model T” he was able to assemble the pieces and end with a drivable (and beautiful) Model T before he even graduated from high school. 

Recently, he was able to drive the Model T in the Pioneer Days Parade—on its 100th birthday, Ed’s 50th year of ownership.

For decades Ed proved that the art of fixing cars was really more about fixing people’s days. He often remembered the vehicle someone drove (and each occasion he had worked on it) before he mentioned their names. When he started to consider the idea of retirement, his sister Adell asked how he was going to spend his free time. Ed said, “I want to help people”. He was the best at what he did and ever since he “closed shop” in 2022, he was still fielding phone calls from people asking him to come out of retirement to fix their rig.

Ed could look at anything that needed fixing and find a solution in a matter of seconds. Once on a family camping trip, the Buchholz’s RV propane switch went bad, leaving them without heat. Ed emerged from his toasty wood-fired wall tent, took a brief look around, and then repaired the RV with nothing but a nail he found and plucked from a nearby tree. 

Ed was a quiet, but successful prankster and he was playing the long game. He would stash “dirt nuts” in luggage, tie buoys on the back of cars, and once even took part in squeezing a friend’s vehicle tightly in between two pine trees…while also connecting the brake pedal to the horn. One July 4th, he and Greg hiked up to Baldy Lake outside of Plains, where Ed spent the entire hike complaining about the “unfair weight of his pack”. Greg shouldn’t have been surprised when they got to the lake and Ed pulled out an entire watermelon because “it wasn’t the Fourth of July without watermelon!”. 

Ed was a man of simple pleasures and was always spending time on the little things that typically required more time and care. He enjoyed spending time in the mountains and has many stories from hunting camp and the good company he kept there. Ed and his brother Jack harvested a cow elk one year in deep snow. They took a day to figure out how to pack the elk out. Ed salvaged an old car hood and with his snowshoes, he was able to pull half the elk out with ease while Jack followed behind, breaking through the packed snow with every step he took, dragging the other half of the elk. If the elk and deer weren't moving, Ed and Jack always spotted good firewood trees to bring home instead. 

In recent years, Ed had developed a passion for cast iron cookware. He and Jeanine (Allard) enjoyed scouring antique shops across the west for prized Wagner and Griswold pieces. He would go on to use part of his collection to host numerous breakfasts in his small log cabin, which felt like stepping back in time. Everything from waffles (on one of his many Griswold waffle irons), bacon, eggs, and even percolated coffee brewed over his wood-fired cookstove—even though he didn’t drink it.

Ed was a doting grandpa who was always scheming large and small ways to make his grandchildren smile. He used the huge cardboard boxes from the shop to build them cabins, school buses, and trains. In the summer months, he would welcome his grandkids with toy trucks and a fresh pile of rocks and dirt. Every birthday card had a special drawing on it. Each Christmas he would gift the grandkids a silver dollar. To make it even more special, he would build a box around the silver dollar, requiring the grandkids to hammer it open to see their gift. Of course, this was not just any ordinary box, but a beautiful, sanded wooden container stamped with each child’s name that was almost too pretty to break open.

Ed is survived by his daughter, Erica Loder (Cort Buchholz) of Bend, OR; son, Greg Loder (Amy) of Sidney, MT; sister, Adell Wright (Dave) of Aztec, NM; brother Jack Loder (Kris) of Plains, MT; grandchildren Lincoln and Imogen Buchholz and Barrett, Hayes, Pierce, Margot, and Rhodes Loder; and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, and neighbors.

Cremation has taken place and Ed’s remains will be buried next to his parents in Plains, MT on September 22, 2024, at 9:00 AM at the Plains Cemetery. 

A celebration of life will be held on September 22, 2024, at 4:00 PM at Sky Ridge Ranch in Ronan with a meal and fellowship to follow. 

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Lake County Search and Rescue or a charity of your choice. 

Last Christmas, his kids gifted him Storyworth—a company that sends weekly emails with unique questions and prompts to which Ed would reply, creating a collection of stories and memories we may not have otherwise heard. One of the June 2024 prompts was “How do you want to be remembered?” Ed wrote:

“All my life I have always liked to pitch in on helping with whatever is going on. It has never felt like a big effort to help out. I hope that will be carried on throughout family as time goes on.”