Joseph Smagorinsky - Early Life

Early Life

Joseph Smagorinsky was born to Nathan Smagorinsky and Dina Azaroff. His parents were from Gomel, Belarus, which they fled during the life-threatening pogroms of the early 20th Century. Nathan and Dina bore three sons in Gomel: Jacob (who died as an infant), Samuel (b. 1903), and David (b. 1907). In 1913, Nathan emigrated from the coast of Finland, passing through Ellis Island and settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nathan at first was a house painter. Then, with the help of a relative, he opened a paint store. In 1916, with the business established, Dina, Sam, and David emigrated by going to Murmansk (Archangel) and then southward along the Norwegian coast to Christiana (now Oslo) and boarding a boat to New York where they joined Nathan. They had two other children: Hillel (Harry) (b. 1919) and Joseph (b. 1924). Like his three brothers, Joseph worked in their father's paint store, which over the years evolved into a hardware and paint store. Sam and Harry stayed in the painting and hardware business, with Harry eventually taking ownership of the original store. As a teenager, David began painting signs for shop owners and subsequently opened a sign painting business. Joseph attended Stuyvesant High School for Math and Science in Manhattan. When he expressed an interest in going to college, the family had a meeting in which they discussed the possibility. Sam and David prevailed in their view that Joseph had great promise and deserved the opportunity to go to college.