Source: "History Of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties, North Carolina 1730-1937"
Clarence W. Griffin (Main Author) Footnote #5: page 511
Gudger W. Edwards was born May 5, 1892, in Madison County, NC. He attended school at Mars Hill and Wake Forest College, graduating in law at Wake Forest in 1914. He came to Rutherfordton in the same year and began the practice of law, and was a member of the firm of Edwards and Edwards. He was for four years, 1920-1924, chairman of the Rutherford County Democratic Executive Committee. He was the first solicitor of the recorder's court of Rutherford County, being appointed to that position in March 1923, by the county commissioners immediately after the passage of the bill providing for such office. He served in that capacity until 1924 when he entered the Democratic primaries against J. Will Pless, Jr. of Marion for 18th District solicitor, and was unsuccessful. He married Miss Cloe Lynch a daughter of the late Lee W. Lynch of Forest City. He died July 6, 1925 after undergoing an operation to releive him of s! everal months of illness. He was a man of high aspirations and untiring energy. His life was cut off at the entrance of a brillant political career, he being only 33 years of age at the time of his death.