WASHINGTON -- The older brother of U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta has died in their native Troy, Ala., a spokeswoman for the congressman said Tuesday.
Edward Lewis was born in 1938, two years before John Lewis, who is 70. But unlike his more famous brother, Edward Lewis spent most of his life near their boyhood home in rural Alabama.
In his 1998 memoir, Lewis described his brother as one of the most self-reliant and expressive people he ever knew -- even though he had been deaf since birth.
"Most people probably would not understand him if they heard him speak," Lewis wrote in his book, "Walking With the Wind." "But I've been listening to Edward's voice my entire life, and like everyone else in my family, I have no problem understanding what to a stranger might sound like a series of grunts and moans."
When Edward Lewis once described a storm to his younger brother during a trip back home, he closed his eyes, covered his ears and waved his arms with such ferocity that "I could feel it myself," John Lewis wrote.
Edward Lewis left school in the fifth grade and lived alone in a trailer across the road from his mother, whom he helped take care of, according Lewis' book.
He spent most of his life "working with his hands -- farming, cutting timber, manning the machinery at a nearby pulp mill," Lewis wrote.
Denise Tolliver, a spokeswoman for Lewis, said the Democratic congressman had returned to Alabama after learning of his brother's death. She said she had no further details about the cause of death or funeral plans.
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