Maurice Smith

Maurice Ohmar (Moe) Smith, age 92, beloved husband of Mary Alice Knobloch Smith , of Erie and Green Valley, AZ, died Thursday December 4, 2014. He was born June 21, 1922 in Bradford, Pennsylvania, a son of the late Ohmar Henry and Amelia Vater Smith.

He attended Strong Vincent High School, the University of Notre Dame and Gannon College. He piloted B-24s in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He began working at the H. Platt Company in 1946 and retired as president and CEO in 1987. He was past president of the Erie Construction Council and was a charter member of the Construction Specification Institute.

Moe was a former member of Holy Cross Parish and the Serra Club. He served as president of the Kahkwa Club and was a Grand Gopher. He was a board member and chairman of the Erie Port Commission, now the Erie Port Authority, for 23 years, and an original member of the board of directors of the Erie Zoological Society. He also served on the board of Security Peoples Trust Company and was a corporator at Saint Vincent Health Center and Hamot Medical Center, where he was a trustee for 10 years.

He was preceded in death by an infant daughter, Margaret Anne Smith in 1949, and his brother, Thomas M. Smith and his wife, Peggy,

He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Mary Alice Knobloch Smith, three daughters, Susan Tracy Wingerter and her husband John R., of Erie; Amy Smith Gibbons and her husband Gary of Phoenix, AZ; Anne L. Hasson and her husband Michael of Portland, OR; and two sons, Peter O. Smith and his wife Susan and Edward E. “Ned” Smith, both of Erie,, his sister, Geraldine Pardy of Oneida, NY, 14 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

Friends may call at the Burton Westlake Funeral Home, 3801 W. 26th Street (at Powell Ave.), on Monday from 3- 6 pm and are invited to a Mass of Christian burial at Our Lady of Peace at 10am on Tuesday. Interment will be private.

Memorials may be made to the Erie Zooligical Society, 423 West 38th Street, Erie, PA 16508 or the Erie Community Foundation, 459 West 6th Street, Erie, PA 16507.