Marvin Glenn Smith died on Tuesday, August 12, 2025. He was 83 years old. Marv was born on May 24, 1942 in Camden, NY. He loved Studebaker cars, bawdy blues music, and the aircraft of World War 1. In many ways these things framed the contours of his life.

Known for his love of fast cars and racing, Marvin survived a horrible accident at the age of 19, an event that left him with extensive, permanent injuries. He spent the rest of his life going to auto shows, attending and watching races around the country, and collecting manuals and other materials related to cars and the racing world.

Marv went on to a long career at Camden Wire, working in the quality assurance area, where he was able to use his sharp skills in analysis and mathematics. He took an early retirement in 1995, eventually settling north of Camden in Empeyville, NY.

It was at this time that his decades long passion for studying World War 1 became a main focus for him. He filled his time with reading and research, amassing a collection of WW1 books, objects, documents, firearms, and art. He traveled extensively to explore military history at museums and trade shows, but perhaps most cherished was his trip to Germany in 1997, where he visited many battle sites first hand.

He had a unique personality – a calm, pleasant demeanor with a touch of nihilism sprinkled in. He would constantly drop catch phrases into conversations: “Nothin’ serious” and “Another day in paradise” came up often. As a “live and let live” Libertarian, Marv often found himself at odds with the dominant, invasive politics of his adult life. Though a quiet, reserved man, he always enjoyed conversation and could hold forth about the blues or history any time. He loved discussing items in his WW1 collection and possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the people and places of that time.

He is survived by his sisters Linda (Leon) and Martha, his children Walter, Matthew (Alison), and Stacey, and many grand kids. He was preceded in death by his parents and beloved daughter Denya. At Marvin’s request, there will be no funeral service.

My sister Stacey was able to retrieve a piece of dad’s WW1 trench art, a 50mm artillery shell decorated in a floral motif with an eagle. This will serve as dad’s urn when he is buried in his family plot. It’s wild – and sort of perfectly poetic – that something made by a young man in the tumultuous trenches of a world at war 110 years ago, will now go into the ground in upstate NY with my father. In a way, he got to take one part of the collection he built over a lifetime with him.