George J. Silos

George Jacob Silos, 96, of Teaneck, passed away on March 25, 2026.

He was born on December 30, 1929, in Manhattan, NY. His parents were Agapetos “George” Silos and Marie Messerschmitt Silos. His father was born in the 1890s, grew up on the Greek Island, Agios Efstratios, and emigrated to the USA with his older brother as a young teenager. He served in the US Fourth Infantry division during WWI.

His mother grew up in Offenbach an der Queich, a municipality in the Rhineland-Palatinate of Germany and emigrated to the USA after WWI. She was a nurse.

George grew up in a cold water flat during the Great Depression. He sometimes said, “his family was poor but didn’t know it.” The family later relocated to Cambria Heights, Queens. George enjoyed helping at his father’s diner, “George’s Coffee Shop,” first in Manhattan and later moving to Long Island City.

As a youth he played sandlot football. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, and achieved a Bachelor’s in Engineering with Honors from the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY in 1951.

George was a Korean War Era Veteran, Lieutenant Junior Grade in the US Naval Reserve. He was in both the Merchant Marine and the Navy and served on the USS Robert H. McCard, a Gearing-class Destroyer that was part of the Atlantic Fleet. The Navy gave him an honorable discharge in 1955.

While in the Service he travelled to dozens of ports including Alexandria, Beirut, Cape Town, Dar Es Salaam, East London, Gibraltar, Istanbul, Liverpool, Piraeus, and Venice.

He founded Silco Industries, Inc. during the 1960s. The Company was located at various times, in Fairfield, Newark, East Orange and Bridgeton, NJ. The company engaged in vinyl products manufacturing, including construction draping for NYC high rises, truck tarpaulins, swimming pool liners and covers and chicken coop curtains used in the Delmarva Peninsula. The business employed dozens of people per year over the course of three decades.

Later in life George reinvented himself. During parts of his 7th and 8th decades he lived and served as the building manager for the Ethiopian Coptic Christian Church in Harlem, NYC. At that time, he engaged in spiritual discovery and holistic living practices.

He was an extra in feature films and television shows, including 2001’s Kate & Leopold. He had strong opinions and authored books, websites, pamphlets, and op ed pieces regarding his “patriarchal” social viewpoints. He was a guest on various New York City talk shows. The Muslim Journalism Society awarded George columnist of the year.

George spent parts of his last two decades offering spiritual healing services to neighbors and friends in the Fieldston section of the Bronx, where he was affectionately known by neighbors, and restaurant and business owners as “Elder George.”

At various times he lived in Queens and Mount Vernon, NY, Bloomfield and North Caldwell, NJ, and in his later years, Manhattan’s Upper West Side and East Harlem neighborhoods and the Fieldstone section of the Bronx.

George and his family were members of Lutheran Churches in New Jersey. Throughout his life he enjoyed ballroom dancing, organic gardening, healthy eating (he was a vegetarian later in life), Toastmasters and yoga. His favorite food was rice pudding.

Survivors include his son and daughter-in-law, George and Francesca Silos; his daughter, Irene Silos; and his son Philip Silos and Philip’s partner, Jennifer Griola – all who live in New Jersey; and his grandchildren, Phoebe Silos of New York and Christian Silos of Washington State.

Predecessors in death include his father, George Silos, mother Marie Dusing (remarried as a widow) nee Messerschmitt and wife Clementina Silos nee Lluria y Revilla (m. 1959, div. 1986).

The burial will be in early April of 2026 with Military Honors at a private family service at the Northern NJ Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Sparta, NJ.

Donations in George’s memory can be made to the private ambulance service, Hatzalah, which provided transportation in his later years: www.riverdalehatzalah.org or the Bronx Fresh Fund, which provided free haircuts via the Bronx Mobile Barber: www.bronxloyalmobilebarber.com, a service George enjoyed and supported.