A sinner turned saint. Man with sordid past devoted later life to orphan aid

It was the summer of 1981 when police burst into a large swingers' party at Heritage Hide-a-way Park on 12th Concession in Flamborough.
Prior to the bust, he and his then wife Jeanette had been operating a swingers club called Ramblewood on Snake Road for about five years until it was razed by fire.
The party had shuffled down the road but legal trouble followed.
Police arrested nearly 100 people under the big top that day and Hughes and his wife were charged with keeping a common bawdy house. True to his character, Hughes fought the charges



Ed Hughes was always a survivor.

He made it through headline grabbing court cases, hostage situations, death threats, a shooting and even a subsequent amputation.
But in the end, the 74-year-old sinner turned saint died the way he would have wanted: helping others.
It was on March 21 when he scaled a ladder outside the Haitian orphanage he built with his bare hands more than a decade ago.
He was trying to fix a plugged water line when he lost his balance, fell to the ground, hit his head and died.
"He was an amazing man," said his friend and fellow missionary Richard Beldman. "We're really thankful for his life."
To say Hughes had a colourful life would be a gross understatement.
Recent images of Hughes in Haiti, including a couple of YouTube postings, show him as the antithesis of his former self.
With his wispy white hair tucked under a dirty cap, the Haitian Hughes is nothing like the polyester Lothario who strode in and out of Hamilton courtrooms in the 1980s.
Back then he was more focused on sin than salvation.
He made headlines in Steeltown when he found himself as ringmaster of a three-ring sex scandal.
It was the summer of 1981 when police burst into a large swingers' party at Heritage Hide-a-way Park on 12th Concession in Flamborough.
Prior to the bust, he and his then wife Jeanette had been operating a swingers club called Ramblewood on Snake Road for about five years until it was razed by fire.
The party had shuffled down the road but legal trouble followed.
Police arrested nearly 100 people under the big top that day and Hughes and his wife were charged with keeping a common bawdy house. True to his character, Hughes fought the charges.
He and Jeanette eventually lost but were spared criminal records by the Ontario court of appeal which gave the pair absolute discharges.
Hughes left the lifestyle behind him a few years later when, with no sailing experience, the amateur carpenter built a 12-metre sailboat in his backyard.
The couple set sail to shores unknown down in the Caribbean and South America but again, the party didn't last.
Jeanette left life at sea and the pair was divorced in the mid-1990s.
Hughes drifted before eventually landing in Haiti, where he found work with the local government.
Beldman, who was in Haiti last month, said Hughes saved up his cash with the thought of building a nightclub.
"While he was building the foundation and walls, the kids from the village would come and he saw they were dying, desperate and hungry," Beldman said.
Instead of realizing his disco-ball dreams, Hughes found religion and formed the stone and mortar into a home for the orphaned children of Haiti. Called Tytoo Gardens, the orphanage currently cares for 22 kids, but he would feed another 100 children daily in a nearby village.
Hughes would say his former life was "forgiven and forgotten."
"He had come to know the Lord," Beldman said. "And his kids were his family now and the kids just loved him to death."
A Canadian by birth, his soul was Haitian.
He stayed when he had his right arm amputated after being shot in 2005.
He returned after his family coughed up a $2,000 ransom when he was kidnapped in 2006.
And he soldiered on through the thefts at the orphanage and threats from bandits.
Now that the Haitian children's "father" is gone, the future of his legacy is in question.
Beldman said Hughes's son Ted has flown down to Haiti and the nearby Mission of Hope has started providing security to Tytoo Gardens.
A team of missionaries hurried there after his death and are working on sorting out who would continue his work.
"He realized that life was more than money and more than self-fulfillment," Beldman said yesterday.
"He realized that his life now was with those kids who needed love, who needed a father. And that's what he was."

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