Eddie Tolan - Death and Family

Death and Family

Tolan never married. In 1965, Tolan's kidneys failed, and he was required to undergo weekly dialysis treatments for the rest of his life. In 1967, Tolan died from heart failure at age 58 at Detroit's Mt. Carmel Hospital, while undergoing one of his weekly treatments. At the time of his death, Jesse Owens paid him tribute in Jet magazine:

"When I was in high school, Eddie and Ralph (Metcalfe) were my idols. Eddie and I later became close friends. I used to live in Detroit and every time I'd go back Eddie was one of the first ones I’d look up."

Tolan was survived by his sisters, June Brown and Martha Lombard, and a brother, Hart H. Tolan. Though the two never met, Tolan was also a cousin of former Major League Baseball player Bobby Tolan. Eddie Tolan is interred at United Memorial Gardens in Plymouth, Michigan.

Read more about this topic:  Eddie Tolan

Famous quotes containing the words death and, death and/or family:

    I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
    I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units.
    Valerie Solanas (b. 1940)