Joseph Marmash was very active in the Ukrainian-American community of Baltimore, Maryland, and helped post-World War II refugees as a member of the Maryland State Committee for the Resettlement of Displaced Persons. He was born in 1911 in Maryland to a Ukrainian immigrant family. After completion of the 10th grade he began work for the Montgomery Ward mail order distribution center in Baltimore, eventually holding positions of supervisor and industrial engineer. He continued to work for Montgomery Ward through his retirement in 1976, with the exeption of a brief wartime position as a draftsman with the Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding Company (1943-1945). His activities in the Ukrainian-American community included organizing the Ukrainian Youth Club in 1932, serving as president of the Ukrainian American Citizen's Club beginning in 1936, organizing and managing a Ukrainian-American softball team in 1937, and serving as president of Branch 320 of the Ukrainian National Association (1946-1952). In 1948 he was appointed by Maryland governor William Preston Lane as a representative to the Maryland State Committee for the Resettlement of Displaced Persons, and in 1949 he helped to organize and became the first president of the Baltimore branch of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.