Ed Boyce - Later Life

Later Life

After his retirement from the WFM, Ed Boyce attended several more WFM conventions. He supported the WFM's creation of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, and testified on behalf of Haywood, Moyer and others at their 1907 murder trail.

But Boyce gradually separated himself from organized labor, and eventually declined to discuss his part in the miners' union.

The Boyces moved to Wallace, Idaho, and then in 1909 to Portland, Oregon. Boyce became an avid reader of social theory and Irish poetry. The Boyces lived quietly, often passing the whole day sitting in the same room reading. Eleanor Boyce took an interest in art and became a member of the Portland Art Association. The Boyces also donated freely to a number of local charities.

Ed Boyce invested in the luxurious Portland Hotel Company in 1911, as well as in other real estate ventures in the city. He was the Portland Hotel's vice-president from 1920 to 1929 and its president from 1930 to his death 1941. In 1936, Ed Boyce was elected president of the Oregon Hotel Association. On December 31, 1923, the Hercules mine partnership was dissolved and the Hercules Mining Company (now Day Mines, Inc.) incorporated in Delaware. Eleanor Day Boyce was the largest stockholder.

Ed Boyce died on December 24, 1941. He left an estate valued at slightly over $1 million.

Eugene V. Debs wrote a month later that Boyce had been "virtually forgotten by the officials of the organization he served at a time when it required real men to speak out for labor."

Eleanor Day Boyce returned to Wallace after her husband's death, where she died on January 9, 1951.