Edwin Harry Sroka, CAPT, USN Retired (1975-2003), age 60, passed away July 7, 2009 in Baltimore, Maryland from heart failure.
If you have comments, memories, etc to share, please post a response.
Edwin Harry Sroka, CAPT, USN Retired (1975-2003), age 60, passed away July 7, 2009 in Baltimore, Maryland from heart failure.
If you have comments, memories, etc to share, please post a response.
Peggy Treiber
I am so shocked. Ed just updated his classmate profile last month, so I sent him a letter and he wrote back saying he'd been to the great 40th reunion that Diane organized. Haven't been able to learn what happened, so hope someone clues us in.Ed loved all things military, and when we dated (he took me to my first dance at Roehm in 9th grade), I got to hear about guns ... a lot. :-) I remember listening to him talk about them on the phone. I would lay the phone on the floor and put my hair up in curlers while he told me more than I could absorb.
But then, he and his parents introduced me to opera and took me to opening nights two years in a row, and that was a wonderful side of him that I loved.
I did get to see and chat with him and Nitalu in 1992 at the reunion and am glad of that. My heart goes out to his family, especially his boys who lost their dad's physical presence way before any child should. I hope they can keep him close in their hearts.
Peggy Treiber
Phyllis sent me the link to legacy.com, where people can leave messages for Ed and his family. Ed died of sudden heart problems. His son describes it there, if you want to read it.Tom Bates
I'd been friends with Ed since 7th grade, not the closest of friends, but friends, and had been to his house multiple times. Lost touch with him after graduation but remember his getting into West Point--probably harder than getting into Harvard, although with slightly broader and different requirements.
I saw Ed at the 25th reunion. Ed was always someone for the military and would never be thought of as a liberal or anti-war fanatic. But he could not stomach what was happening during the Vietnam War or at least the one-sided, close-minded, rah-rah view of it when he was at West Point--he was too intellectually honest--and left. But he pursued a career in the military elsewhere.
At some point he had been listed as missing on the class webpage and I did a lot of digging and search on the internet, located him and put him back in contact and sent Larry Froehlich the information as well--sometime before the 40th reunion.
I was shocked when I learned of his heart attack in the summer when he was only 60. I can't imagine him not being in top physical shape. I didn't make it to the 40th reunion but was hoping to see him a the class "60th birthday party" in the summer of 2009, a month after he died.
If anyone is interested, Ed's younger brother, Elliott, came to New York after college and worked as dramaturg at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He has been Executive Director of the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at Long Island University since sometime before 1990.
He can be reached at:
Dr. Elliott Sroka
Executive Director, Tilles Center for the Performing Arts; Director, C.W. Post Institute for Arts & Culture
516-299-2537
elliott.sroka@liu.edu