Wilbur K. Smith

Wilbur K. Smith, of Garden City and Miller Place, New York passed away on Thursday, June 21, 2007 after a valiant battle against pancreatic cancer. Mr. Smith was the devoted husband of Marilyn Smith (nee Kohart) and has resided in Garden City and Miller Place for the past 59 years. He is also survived by his beloved children and children-in-law W. Kenneth Smith, Jr. and his wife Nancy of Wilmington, NC and Christy and Gary Mathis of Annapolis, MD, his grandchildren and grandchil-dren-in-law Patricia Mathis and Mark Steinberg of Towson, MD, Deborah Mathis and Mark Leonard of Alpharetta, GA, Me-gan Smith and Roger Reed of Wilmington, NC and Kevin and Colin Smith of Wilmington, NC. Also surviving Mr. Smith are his five great grandchildren Tyler and Erin Steinberg, Brendan Leonard, and Ryan and Molly Reed. In addition, he is mourned by a huge extended family including many nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.

Wilbur served from 1942 to 1946 in the United States Marine Corp and saw action in the Pacific and Iwo Jima. He was a loyal marine and a true patriot and demonstrated this by raising the American flag and the Marine Corp flag at his home each morning. He was also an ex-chief of the Garden City Fire Department and a former officer of the Exempt Association of the Garden City Fire Department. Wilbur's career included many years at his family's heat-ing wholesale business Hasko Utilities Company.

Arrangements were handled by the Fairchild Funeral Home in Garden City. On Sunday evening, the Garden City Fire Department honored Ex-Chief Smith with the fire department's rites for a deceased member. Religious services were held on Monday, June 25, at the Fairchild Funeral Home with Father Joseph Pae of the Cathedral of the Incarnation presiding. The Garden City Fire Department provided an escort for its ex-chief to the burial site. A Marine Corp Honor Guard met the family at the cemetery to end the burial office by playing Taps and presented them with the flag that draped the casket and had previously flown over the United States Capital Building. Burial followed in the Smith family plot at Greenfield Cemetery, Hempstead.