DETROIT — Edward Gillis, brother of Detroit rocker Jack White, died Oct. 23 after a battle with cancer, White shared on social media on Friday. He was 60.

Gillis, who was the eighth of 10 kids, was the plant manager at White's Third Man Pressing plant in Detroit, which opened in 2017. He was married to his wife, Angie, and he had two children, Amelia and Garrett.

"The world lost a beautiful soul today," White wrote in an Instagram post. "Ed was such a caring, funny and generous person that everybody loved."

Ben Blackwell, Jack White's business partner and nephew, remembered Gillis teaching him how to fish on the Detroit river when he was younger. "He was the fisherman of the family," said Blackwell, who was Gillis' godson.

Blackwell recalls attending a pair of Detroit Red Wings games with Gillis — one in 1994 at Joe Louis Arena, when the Wings bested the Maple Leafs in overtime, and one in recent years at Little Caesars Arena, when he and Gillis came straight from the Third Man plant and walked down Cass Ave. to Little Caesars Arena.

"Those are great family memories," Blackwell said Friday.

Blackwell said that Gillis was hired to run the Third Man plant because of his ability to work with others.

"He knew how to motivate people," Blackwell said. "When we were planning everything with the plant, figuring out who was going to do what, he had no history in record pressing, he had no history in manufacturing. But he knew how to run a team. You can learn all that other (stuff)."

Gillis had previously worked in the kitchen at Beaumont Hospital and the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn.

In his post, White said that at the pressing plant, his brother "loved making small sculptures and flowers from the vinyl scraps of the plant."

He said Eddie played guitar when he was younger, and Jack would play music with him, when he was still primarily a drummer.

"He taught me so many wonderful and simple things over the years that I'll never forget; how to string a guitar, how to fish on the Detroit river, how to drive a stick shift," the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer wrote in his post.

"He was an amazing brother to me and i just hate to see him leave, but I'm glad he's at peace," he said. "God bless you Eddie."

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