George Edward Smith, a retired employee of the Baltimore County school system, died of pneumonia and heart failure April 7 at Liberty Medical Center. He died on his 83rd birthday.

Educated in Baltimore public schools, he was a corporal in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and was discharged in 1945.

Mr. Smith was a chef on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and shipping clerk for Poland Katz, a local umbrella company, until it closed in the early 1960s. He then became an elementary school maintenance supervisor with Baltimore County before retiring in 1975 from Paul Hatton Elementary School, off Reisterstown Road.

Mr. Smith loved good food, books, flowers and fishing. He was a member of Cornerstone Baptist Church.

His wife, the former Elsie Waddy, died in 1981.

He is survived by a son, Army Capt. Donald Smith of Fort Dix, N.J.; a daughter-in-law, Alicia B. Harvey-Smith; a sister, Margaret Gibson of Catonsville; a niece, Lorraine Blue, and a cousin, Sherri Carrington, both of Baltimore.