Edward T. Haas, 78, a former Chicago police captain who moved to Arizona 20 years ago to a retiree’s paradise of wood-working and golfing, died Monday, June 5, in Valley Lutheran Hospital in Mesa, Ariz., after a heart attack on the golf course. From his garage where he parked his street-legal golf cart, Mr. Haas would drive three to four times a week to play at Sunland Village Golf Course in his retirement community, said his son Kenneth. Plaques on his wall show he shot holes-in-one in March 1994 and January 1999. “They got tired of the cold and snow,” Kenneth Haas said of his parents’ move to Arizona in 1980 just a few months after Mr. Haas retired from the Police Department. Mr. Haas was born in Chicago and grew up on the West Side near Kedzie Avenue, said his wife, Edna. He served as a flight engineer in the Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946 and was stationed in Newfoundland, she said. After the service, he worked as a punch press operator at Chicago Screw Co. A mutual friend introduced him to his future wife and they were married in 1948. Two years later, Mr. Haas joined the Chicago Park District Police Department. He was a patrolman when the force merged with the Chicago Police Department in 1958. His duties during his 30-year career included running the communications operations section; leading a unit of the Community Service Aides, which was an early community policing effort; and commanding the Wood Street Police District, 937 N. Wood St. He also played trumpet in the Park District police band, said Tony Pulciani, a longtime friend and retired police officer. In his spare time, Mr. Haas enjoyed making home improvements and working with the “2-by-4 Club,” a group in Mesa that made wooden toys for children during the holidays, Kenneth Haas said. Other survivors include another son, Richard; a brother, Charles: and two grandchildren. Services will be held Friday in Mesa.
