Elden Carnahan

Elden Carnahan of Laurel, Maryland died at the age of 71 on June 13, 2023, after a long illness.

Elden was born on March 19, 1952 in Potsdam, New York, to Doris and Roy Carnahan. He was a precocious and intellectual child, eschewing the ball field for his books and his writing. The son of a preacher, he and his family (eventually including siblings Stephen, Gary, and Sherri) moved with some regularity, from Potsdam to Rochester to Baltimore, where he graduated from Baltimore City College. As a teen, Elden was active in many church-related activities, including Bible quizzing, IMPACT, and Northeast Nazarene Camp, where he met his lifelong friend, Matthew Roberts.

In his first week at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, Elden met his future bride, Mary Taylor, of Waycross, Georgia. They married in 1974, the day after their graduation, and were in their 50th year of marriage when he died.

After completing his Master’s degree in linguistics at the University of Rochester in 1976, Elden and Mary moved to Langley Park, Maryland. Elden worked across the river in Falls Church at CUP publishing, which Elden fondly referred to as “the print equivalent of WKRP in Cincinnati.”

In 1978, with a baby on the way, Elden and Mary bought a fixer-upper bungalow in Takoma Park, and Elden began his 30+ years of employment with the National Security Agency. Hired as a computer technician, he eventually made his way back to writing, serving as a technical writer and editor in his later years at the agency. Along the way, he completed a JD from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, logging many hours in the pro se family law free legal clinic in Baltimore.

In 1990, the family moved to Laurel, where Elden was an active member of Laurel Presbyterian Church. There, he gave of his time organizing work trips to hurricane-stricken Louisiana and Mississippi, managing the local winter shelter, and serving as an elder.

Elden loved music and participated in a number of different choral ensembles throughout his life, from a barbershop quartet to the Central Maryland Chorale to the sanctuary choirs at Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church in Silver Spring and later at Laurel Presbyterian. One of his most cherished experiences among his extensive international travels during retirement was singing with the choir for Easter at St. Peter’s Church in Harrogate, England.

Elden was funny. He was a frequent winner of the Style Invitational, a long-running weekly humor and wordplay contest in the Washington Post. He was also the founding father of the social community that sprang up around the contest, serving as its de facto historian, social director, statistician and curmudgeon-in-chief.

Elden’s love of language was a common thread throughout his rich life. He spoke a few languages and could get by in several more. He cared about the nuances of words; he appreciated a poignant turn of phrase; he corrected his daughters every time they said “snuck” instead of “sneaked.”

It was a pet peeve of Elden’s to see the word “beloved” used in an obituary to refer to family and friends of the deceased. “Obituaries shouldn’t put words in the mouths of people who have died,” he would opine. But “beloved” is the only way to describe the family he is leaving behind—his wife Mary, his two daughters, April and Erin and their husbands Eric and Bryan, and his five grandchildren, Jamie, Lizzy, Owen, Lily and Ellie.

Despite being a true connoisseur of the English language, words were not how he showed them he loved them. As Mary would often say, “You have to look at what Elden does, not just what he says.”

What did he do?

Nothing more or less than devote himself completely and enthusiastically to the happiness and welfare of his family. This he did without complaint and without fail. It was his singular purpose in life to help when they needed help and his favorite satisfaction to watch them succeed in their own endeavors. With his bride, he created for his children and grandchildren idyllic and joyful childhoods that led them into secure and confident adulthoods. His hand on the back of a bicycle seat, he held them up until they could ride on their own, and then watched them fly with a proud and vigilant eye.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, July 15th, at 2:00 pm at Laurel Presbyterian Church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Elden’s memory to Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services (LARS).