Edgar "Ned" Coale, 87; owned optical company

Edgar "Ned" Belleville Coale, 87, a retired optical company owner, died Saturday, Dec. 31, of complications from emphysema at his home in Chestnut Hill.

Mr. Coale was a self-taught mechanical engineer with a master's degree in English literature; a pipe smoker devoted to running and swimming; and a Quaker who served in the military during World War II.

A friend, the late Ian McHarg, a prominent regional planner and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, called Mr. Coale "a mix of glorious contradictions." A son, Howard, said: "He was a man who defied categorization."

Mr. Coale graduated from Germantown Friends School and attended Haverford College.

In 1944, Mr. Coale resigned from Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting and enlisted in the Army Air Force. As a crew chief aboard C-47 cargo planes, he flew over the Himalayan "Hump" to deliver supplies to British troops in Burma.

After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree from Haverford in 1946 and then a master's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania.

He planned to pursue a career as an academic and playwright, his son said.

In 1949, Mr. Coale married Joan Levy. With the birth of his first child the next year, he needed a steady income and joined his wife's family's firm, Max Levy & Co., in Philadelphia. Max Levy and his brother Louis founded the firm in 1875 to develop halftone screens and etched plates to reproduce photographs.

Mr. Coale started in a low-level job for the summer and stayed on, becoming head of operations in 1965.

He taught himself physics and engineering, his son said, and was responsible for four patents for technology used in computerized printers, television screens, and other applications.

Since their filings in the 1960s and 1970s, the patents have led to innovations developed by General Electric, Sony, Kodak, Hitachi, and NASA, Howard Coale said.

After Max Levy & Co. was sold in 1978, Mr. Coale remained with the firm until 1985. He then headed Archos Co., a computer-technology company, until the early 1990s.

Mr. Coale studied ornithology, anthropology, and astrophysics, and researched the growth of beech trees. He also remained interested in literature as well as art, politics, and history.

"He was a brilliant conversationalist at his kitchen table, where people of diverse backgrounds came to talk and lock horns in debate," his son said.

Mr. Coale and Joan Levy Coale raised four children before divorcing. In 1979, he married Joan Ingersoll Coale. The couple traveled in China, India, and Mexico, and often visited Western Europe.

Besides his wife and son, Mr. Coale is survived by daughters Sydney Light and Hannah; a son, William; stepchildren George and Ashley McNeely and Nina Diefenbach; nine grandchildren; and his former wife.

A memorial service will be at 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at Valley Green Inn, Valley Green Road at the Wissahickon Creek.