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Robert Edwards was born in New York in 1915. In Rye his family lived at 70 Prospect Street and were members of the Presbyterian Church. Robert enlisted in 1942 and served in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Robert was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University in the Class of 1937, earned an MA in history from Harvard in 1938, and a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1949.
During World War II he served five years as an Army intelligence officer in this country and Europe, ending as a Captain and being awarded a Bronze Star.
After graduation from Union he was called to be a minister of the First Congregational Church of Litchfield where he remained for seven years. He came to Immanuel in 1956, retiring as Minister Emeritus in 1980. He was instrumental in establishing Immanuel House, Hartford, a large apartment complex for low income elderly.
He was President of the Greater Hartford Council of Churches (now the Capitol Region Conference of Churches), the board of the Connecticut Institute for the Blind/Oak Hill, and his Princeton Class. He also served as a trustee of the Hartford Seminary, a Corporator of the United Church of Christ Board of World Ministries, and a board member of the Connecticut Prison Association (now Community Partners in Action), and briefly of the Bushnell Park Foundation.
Among other community connections he was a member of the Hartford Civitan Club, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford, the Old State House Association, the Mark Twain Memorial, and a Director-at-Large of the My Country Society of Litchfield. He wrote several widely used hymn texts and was the author of four books, including a biography of Hartford's famous pastor Horace Bushnell, ``Of Singular Genius, Of Singular Grace'', and his own autobiography, ``My Moment in History''.
 Rev. Robert L. Edwards former minister of Immanuel Congregational Church, Hartford, died Sunday, (January 15, 2006). He was 90.
At the time of his death he was survived by his wife, Dr. Sarah A. Edwards, author and former adjunct professor at Hartford Seminary; a daughter Edith H. Edwards, longtime volunteer at the American Red Cross; a son, Rev. James D. Edwards, a United Church of Christ minister in Stow, OH; a grandson, Lansing Charles Edwards; a brother, Professor Richard Edwards of Ann Arbor, MI; a sister, Dr. Mary Parke Edwards Manning (Mrs. James A.) of Rochester, NY; several nieces and nephews, and numerous great-nieces and nephews.
A memorial service was held on Thursday, January 19, at the Immanuel Congregational Church, 10 Woodland St., Hartford. Burial was at the convenience of the family in Randolph, NH.
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