Edward Smolarz was born on March 31, 1920, and died on January 30, 2013. He spent his boyhood playing soccer and learning his father’s roofing business. He was lucky to survive the rigors of various labor and concentration camps. He settled in Springfield, MA from 1949 to 1961. He was married and had two children. They moved to Baltimore where his wife was raised, and they lived the rest their life doting on their two grandchildren. “One should not measure a man by the heights which he was attained, but by the depths from which he has come.”