Edward A. Janowitz Sr., a retired postal worker who co-founded the Overlea/Fullerton recreation council and ran two area teen centers with his wife, died Friday of complications from a fall last month. He was 88 and had lived for 55 years in the house he built in Fullerton.
In 1950, Mr. Janowitz and two others found a field and obtained permission from Baltimore County officials to begin the recreation council, said Lee Mayers of Glen Rock, Pa., who befriended Mr. Janowitz's son while playing Little League baseball and continued a friendship with the senior Mr. Janowitz.
"Mr. Ed did a great deal for kids in the Overlea-Fullerton section of Baltimore County during the '50s, '60s and '70s," Mr. Mayers said. "He was just a great guy."
Mr. Janowitz was a Little League coach from 1950 to 1962, he said, and "a great teacher of the game."
In 1958, Mr. Janowitz and his wife, the former Marie A. Fromeyer, ran the junior teen center at Elmwood Elementary School. When their son and his friends grew older, the couple started a senior teen center at Overlea High in 1960. That center featured local bands and drew teens from throughout the area, Mr. Mayers said. They volunteered there until 1973.
"Thousands of kids would see Mr. Ed and his wife, Marie, at either the ball field or at the basketball courts at Overlea, or at the junior or senior teen center," Mr. Mayers said.
Mr. Janowitz worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps at Deep Creek Lake during the Depression, then worked in electronics for the former Glenn L. Martin Co. during and after World War II. He joined the U.S. Postal Service in the early 1960s and worked as a letter carrier until retiring in 1976.
In addition to his volunteer work, Mr. Janowitz enjoyed fishing on the Chesapeake Bay and had been an avid Baltimore Colts fan.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Church of the Annunciation, 5212 McCormick Ave. in Overlea.
Mrs. Janowitz died last year, and their son, Edward A. Janowitz Jr., died in 1994.
Survivors include a sister, Regina A. Slagle of Fallston; and two granddaughters.