Edward Martin Patz, probably taken in 1920. (Click to enlarge, 70K)

Edward's military records indicate that he attended public school in Boston, Masschusetts, completing coursework through the 9th Grade.

On April 27, 1941, Edward married Geraldine Edith Marks. Geraldine was born in 1921 in Boston, Masschusetts. She was the daughter of Clifton S. Marks (native of Blue Hill, Maine) and Frances (née Oliver) Marks (native of Phippsburg, Maine).

Up until 1942, when his daughter Frances was born, Edward worked as a bricklayer's laborer. He then became a bricklayer, in order to earn more money for his new family.

Edward was inducted into the U.S. Army in 1944. During World War II, he served as a rifleman in Company C 385th Regiment, where he fought in Europe (battles and campaigns included Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe). Edward was honorably discharged from military service on January 16, 1946.

Frances (née Patz) Craig writes of her parents: After the war, Mom and Dad bought my grandmother's house at 143 Falcon Street in East Boston, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was very seriously burned in an accident in his back yard, lighting a charcoal grill, in 1970, and spent three months in the isolation burn unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, receiving several skin grafts, and several more months recuperating at home. He often joked about donating his body for an exhibit at the Smithsonian, because of the scarring on his trunk, arms and legs. He was not able to tolerate the chemicals used in bricklaying after that, so became a maintenance worker at Revere Memorial Hospital in 1971. He retired on disability in, I think, 1979, after his first heart bypass.

He and Mom loved to camp and had a trailer in a campground in Rochester, NH. They also loved to travel, and took to spending their winters in Florida after they retired. He was always the life of every party, and had a large store of awful jokes. His greatest joy was his family, and he loved nothing more than holding his grandchildren and great-grandson in his lap and making them laugh. He had at least two heart attacks in 1986-7 and a second bypass in 1987, and suffered from congestive heart failure until his death in 1997.

Edward died on September 20, 1997. He is interred in a plot adjacent to his parents at Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts.