Korean War veteran was founding pastor of Resurrection Parish
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Father Edward Turner, the Korean War veteran who was the founding pastor of Resurrection of the Lord Parish in Waipio, died Aug. 7 at the Veteran’s Medical Center in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he was retired. He was 88 and a priest of the Diocese of Honolulu for 52 years.
Edward Turner was born on July 18, 1930, in Queens, N.Y., the second child of Helen and Joseph Turner.
He served in the U.S. Navy as an aviation radioman from 1950 to 1954 aboard the aircraft carriers USS Tarawa and the USS Coral Sea and with the VP-44 Squadron at Norfolk, Virginia.
Upon his discharge, Father Turner attended St. John University in Jamaica, N.Y. He graduated in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and a major in English.
He came to Hawaii in 1959 and taught for a year at Waianae High School and for another year at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa. While in Waianae, he taught religious education to seventh graders at Sacred Heart Parish.
He entered Dehon Seminary for “late” vocations in Great Barrington, Maine, staying there for a year while applying to study for the priesthood for the Diocese of Honolulu. He was accepted by Hawaii Bishop James J. Sweeney who sent him to the Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio for four years of study.
Father Turner had been encouraged to seek the priesthood by his pastor in Waianae, Father Bernard Eikmeier, also a Josephinum graduate.
Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, the apostolic delegate to the United States, ordained Father Turner a priest for the Diocese of Honolulu at Josephinum on May 28, 1966.
Father Turner’s first Hawaii assignment was as an associate pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
This was followed by assignments at Sacred Heart in Waianae, Our Lady of the Mount in Kalihi Valley, Our Lady of Sorrows in Wahiawa, and St. John Apostle and Evangelist in Mililani.
In September of 1986, Father Turner was named as the founding pastor of Resurrection of the Lord Parish in Waipio, Oahu, formerly a mission of St. John Apostle and Evangelist, Mililani.
He was also very involved in the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement.
Father Turner retired in July 1995.
