By Nick Buglione
Local firefighters, both young and young at heart, have long had a soft spot for Moskowski, who is far and away the oldest living member of the department, and are now wishing him a full recovery after a mild stroke kept the longtime East Meadow resident in the hospital for much of the last month.
"Being the oldest living member, we respect him highly," said East Meadow Fire Department Commissioner Robert Beck, who has known Moskowski for about 30 years and served alongside him.
Born in Uniondale in 1913, Moskowski and his family eventually settled in nearby East Meadow. They carved out their niche on East Meadow Avenue, which was then mostly potato fields, and eventually built the house that is now Kearns Funeral Home, as well as the house at 14 Arnold Court -- where Ed would raise his four children.
A carpenter by trade, Moskowski volunteered for the department just two years after it was established in 1930.
"He joined for social purposes. There wasn't much to do around here in the 1930s," said Moskowski's 49-year-old son John. "Probably the big thing was having the fire department, and that's why he joined."
The department, and the entire community for that matter, was much different back then. World War II and the East Meadow population surge that followed it were still years away.
"We fought a lot of brush fires at the time; there weren't too many houses," said Julius Krill, 79, who knows Moskowski well, having joined the East Meadow Fire Department in 1942.
According to Krill, back then the department had only two trucks for its two companies, which were each manned by 15 to 20 volunteers and stationed in one house. That's a far cry from the 150 active members that now fill East Meadow's four stations, soon be five when the one under construction on East Meadow Avenue opens later this summer.
"We didn't have radios and sophisticated communication like they do now," Krill said. On calls, Moskowski drove the motor pump, an apparatus that would be hooked up to the hydrant and feed water to the hoses, Krill said.
"You had to be really on the ball for that job," he added, noting that Moskowski was extremely proficient at it.
After serving four years as a volunteer, Moskowski became chief in 1936 -- a position he would hold until 1941.
It was during his tenure as chief that he earned the nickname "smoky." "He and a couple of guys were down in the Bellmore area, out for the night," said Moskowski's daughter Eleanor, 57, who incidentally still lives in the house she and her siblings grew up in on Arnold Court.
On their way back home, coming up what was then Newbridge Avenue, Moskowski stuck his nose up into the air and took a few sniffs.
"He said, 'We have a fire, I smell smoke' and sure enough, when they got [back to East Meadow], there was a fire," Eleanor said. He's been known as smoky ever since.
Fire followed Moskowski on another night out years later in 1955, when he was celebrating his installation as commissioner.
On that cold December evening, his party was cut short when the school on Front Street, which is now home to the East Meadow Public Library, burned down. The blaze destroyed the school and had a significant impact on the community.
"I didn't go to kindergarten for that reason; there was no school," Eleanor said. Moskowski was at the center of another East Meadow tragedy that took place in November 1962, when a small plane crashed into a Prospect Avenue home, killing the pilot and those inside the house.
"Surrounded by white, blinding smoke, East Meadow fireman Ed Moskowski looks over a piece of wreckage of the all-metal plane searching for remnants of people or clues as to the identity of the plane," read the Newsday photo caption that chronicled the incident.
After 1965, his last year as commissioner, Moskowski began taking a less active role in the fire department, but remained a fixture at social happenings, meetings and installation dinners.
He never missed the community's Memorial Day Parade, until this year when health problems prevented his attendance. In March, Moskowski entered Mercy Hospital with an infection and suffered a fall during his stay that broke his hip and delayed his release.
Weeks of rehabilitation followed, although Moskowski was able to attend the May 18 East Meadow Fire Department installation dinner, where he received an award commemorating his 70-year affiliation with the company.
However, a mild stroke in early June landed Moskowski back in the hospital.
"We were hoping to have him out by his birthday on June 22, but that didn't happen," Eleanor said. "We'd like to get him out as soon as we can."
Still, the fire department remains a Moskowski family tradition, as his son John has been a volunteer for the past 30 years.
"John has a little son, and I'm sure he'll be in the fire department one day," Beck said.
Moskowski has eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
