It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Hans Joachim Schwarz ,who passed away on November 22, 2022, at the age of 92. Hans was a resident of Henrietta, NY for 70 years. Hans died after a brave struggle with his declining health, shortly after a transfer to Colorado to live in an assisted living facility near his daughter Lorraine. His son Robert and his daughter Kate were there at his side in his last hours. He insisted on his independence and his self-determination; he was his feisty self to the very last.

Hans was pre-deceased by his wife, Lore Teresia Gleichauf, to whom he was married for more than 60 years. Hans and Lore met in Tuttlingen, Germany, Lore’s hometown, after WWII .

Hans Schwarz was born in Labiau, near Konigsberg, in what was then East Prussia and was raised by his mother and grandparents. He recounted being forced, when he was 14 years old, to retrieve civilian bodies from bombed buildings. Toward the end of the war, when the Russian army entered East Prussia in January of 1945, he fled, along with thousands of other refugees, alone to the west, and was eventually reunited with his family in Schleswig, in West Germany.

In 1950 he emigrated to New York and found work on a farm in LeRoy with his lifelong friend, Rudolf Kunze. He enlisted into the 82nd Airborne in the US Army as a paratrooper and served honorably. On his Christmas leave, he married Lore on December 24, 1952. After that he worked as a welder, a builder and then as an appliance repairman, becoming so skilled and efficient he was honored as “Repairman of the Year” by Frigidaire with a trip to their factory to witness the manufacturing process. He continued to work long hours as a repairman, and eventually started his own company. Hans volunteered as a medic during the 1970’s with Henrietta Volunteer Ambulance Service and contributed to the stability and success of the organization. Hans was an avid alpine skier and sailor. As a boy he was trained to fly glider planes. In his '50s he started flying again and was an active member of the Finger Lakes Soaring Club for more than 20 years. Hans was perhaps at his happiest when he found the perfect thermal column and drifted up into the heavens with the company of a hawk flying alongside his plane.

Hans and Lore had five children, and they and their children now make up a numerous and colorful extended family, spread across the country in Rochester, NY, Baltimore, MD, Westminster, CO, Madison, WI and Portland, OR.

Hans is survived by his five children: Barbara A. Schwarz-Woodaman, Lorraine A. Schwarz, Kathleen M. Schwarz, Robert B. Schwarz and Lisa Schwarz, Hans is also survived by eight grandchildren: Katrina Kurokawa, Gabriel Feinstein, Talo Thomson, Seve Thomson, Tenley Schwarz, Charlie Piazza, Lauren Piazza and Teresa Piazza.

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