George Joseph Olewnick, 95, passed away on Friday, March 30th at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie. Born on February 22, 1923 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to Irene (Drewieski) and Joseph Olewnick, he was raised, along with his brother and sister, by their mother in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Childhood was spent playing in the streets and sidewalks around his Kent Street home, and palling with buddies along the working docks on the Brooklyn side of the East River. He learned to skate, on the streets and on ice, picking up a stick and beginning his lifelong love affair with the sport of hockey. Regular forays were made into Manhattan to the old Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue, where he and his gang would sit high up in the rafters and root for their beloved New York Rangers hockey team. His math and science skills earned him a place at the Brooklyn Technical High School, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1940.
In 1942 he joined the Navy and was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes in Chicago. During his time there he attended Aviation School in Chicago and then took advantage of the V-12 Navy college training program and enrolled in Central College in Fayette, Missouri. After one year he enrolled at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas where in 1946 he earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree. In 1948 he went to work in New York City for the International Business Machines company as a Customer Engineer, just as I.B.M. was transitioning from a maker of typewriters and office machines to the world’s leading developer of computers and computer software. His love for ice skating would lead him to meet the love of his life. In 1947, at the Iceland Rink above Madison Square Garden he asked Alice Koch, who was there from North Bergen, NJ with her friends, if she would like to skate. She said yes and on August 28, 1949 they married and boarded a ferry honeymoon-bound for Block Island, Rhode Island. The swelling seas, still stirring that day due to a recent hurricane, assured a memorable, if stomach-turning, first visit to Block Island.
I.B.M. moved the young couple around – from New York City to Endicott, NY, where he worked as a Customer Engineer instructor, and eventually to Madison, Wisconsin. In Madison, at the height of the Cold War, he was a Field Manager at a Semi-Automatic Ground Environment site (SAGE), a system of computers that coordinated data from various radar sites and directed the NORAD response to a Soviet air attack. In 1960 I.B.M. relocated him to Poughkeepsie, where he worked as Reliability and Serviceability Manager, staying with the firm until his retirement in 1985. It was in Poughkeepsie that his five children would be raised, and the family would settle into their large home on the south side, steps away from the park where the kids would play ball and the woods where they would explore.
George was an avid golfer, softball player, and a charter member of the Dutchess Blues ice hockey team. He played competitive hockey well into his 60’s, often in outdoor barn rinks in the dead of winter, and always without a helmet. He enjoyed tinkering with electronics and gadgets in his basement workshop, completing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle each week, and listening to big band and Sinatra records on weekends. He loved spending time with his wife of 69 years, and never more so than during their annual summer trips to Block Island, that began with their honeymoon in ’49, continued with children in tow during the 1960’s and 70’s, and then visiting as a happy elder couple up until a few years ago. He observed life with a wry, and at times cutting, sense of humor and had little tolerance for nonsense or pretentiousness. He was a practical man, but under the sometimes gruff exterior was a man of warmth and intellect, who loved his wife and family, and was in turn loved by many, and who will be missed dearly.
George Olewnick is survived by his wife Alice Olewnick, his sister Irene Mohr, of Boca Raton, Florida, and his five children – Brian Olewnick, Glen Olewnick, Neil Johannis, Drew Olewnick, Lisa Tilley – and their spouses, as well as six grandchildren and three nieces. He was pre-deceased by his brother Arthur.
A gathering of family and friends will be held on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, from4-8 PM at the Wm. G. Miller & Son FH, Inc., 371 Hooker Ave., Poughkeepsie, NY 12603. Military Honors will be given at 8PM. If you wish to send an online condolence please visit our website at www.wmgmillerfuneralhome.com

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