Laurence M. Smith

Laurence M. Smith, born in Newton, Massachusetts on July 12, 1944 to Sally and Aleck Smith, died on February 6, 2025 from pancreatic cancer. Larry was a beloved husband, father, step-father and grandfather. The youngest of two boys, Larry quickly became the entrepreneur of his family creating his first business at the age of 15, arranging for other teenagers to drive college students to and from the airport, and then selling Fuller Brush products door-to-door in his neighborhood, where he became something of a local celebrity.

Larry was especially proud of the businesses he created as an adult. He earned degrees in accounting and law, but business was always his passion. While working as an accountant, he discovered the frustration of his nursing home clients who had to schlep their elderly patients to outside facilities whenever they needed x-rays. Discovering a pathway to create a business that would improve people’s lives, Larry started a Mobile X-ray business – making x-ray technology portable, and available at senior and other residential communities for the first time in the Boston area. 

It was through this work in the healthcare sector that he first met Dina, the love of his life, and for her moved to the Philadelphia suburbs where he, luckily, was able to maintain his specific, quirky and strong Boston accent.

Believing in other ways healthcare technology could be beneficial and profitable, he began Life Support Systems – a company that focused on making AED’s, or Automated External Defibrillators, available to everyday places where people might have a cardiac arrest – supermarkets, libraries, schools, and private companies. His company leased the equipment and provided training to staff on how to effectively use the product. He was incredibly proud when his equipment and work was part of saving someone’s life, as it often was. The company would receive emails of gratitude that would make Larry cry. Working in that business with his son, Bret, who ultimately took over when Larry semi-retired, was a great joy to him.

Larry was known for his ability to fix anything and to think of everything. He was equally adept at helping snag first place for building the fastest mouse-trap car for a kid’s science project as he was at re-wiring a radio. Always prepared, he took delight in sharing life hacks he heard about and equipping family members with the newest kind of tire gauge or non-smearable ball point pen.

Privately, Larry was a lover of people and information. Insatiably curious, he could often be found ingesting news in every source, surrounded by multiple newspapers including the Boston Globe - which he had delivered at home even after moving to Pennsylvania – while watching the tv news, and with a book on his kindle nearby. He was unbeatable at Jeopardy. He was endlessly interested in what was happening in the world around him and, equally, what was happening with the birds and wildlife in his backyard.

Nothing, however, intrigued him more than people. A natural and perpetual salesman, Larry loved to chat and laugh with people – a stranger calling to sell him something or his family, who he adored. He could speak to and about his grandchildren for hours. Their “Pa Larry” was endlessly warm, generous, and entertaining. And nobody intrigued him more than his wife of 32 years, Dina Lichtman-Smith, who he deeply and openly loved and admired for the entirety of their time together. Over more than thirty years of marriage they built a home, a combined family, and a life full of travel, reading, love and joy.

Larry is survived by Dina, and his children, Greg Smith (Amy), Bret Smith (Kim McKinney), Liz Squadron (Daniel), and Lindsay Lief (Jacob) and grandchildren Sabrina, Addyson, Theo, Freedom, Madiba and Humphrey, as well as loving extended family Wilma Cygler, Jules Lichtman and Melissa, Dennis, Ben and Parker Martini.

Relatives and friends are invited to services Sunday February 9, 12:30 PM at Joseph Levine & Sons, 4737 E. Street Road, Trevose, PA.

The family asks that contributions in his memory may be made to Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, www.HAMEC.org, or to Ubuntu Pathways, www.ubuntupathways.org.

www.levinefuneral.com