Edward J. Piszek, 87; Co-Founder of Mrs. Paul’s Kitchens

Edward J. Piszek, 87, co-founder of the Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish empire, died Saturday of bone cancer at his home in Fort Washington, Pa.

Piszek had worked at General Electric Co. and Campbell Soup Co. before he formed Mrs. Paul’s Kitchens Inc. in 1946 with $350 and the help of a friend, whom he bought out in the 1950s. When he sold the company in 1982, annual sales topped $100 million.

Proud of his Polish descent, Piszek founded the Copernicus Society of America to inform Polish Americans about their heritage and became a philanthropist dedicated to aiding Poland.

He bought and shipped equipment to Poland to fight a tuberculosis epidemic in the 1960s, befriending Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, who later became Pope John Paul II. Piszek also donated 10 million pounds of food in the early 1980s to combat food shortages in Poland.