Skip to content

8 Comments

  1. William Lovlien
    @

    My earliest memories of Uncle Joe were special. I was living with Grandma Dorothy for a spell and he would come by periodically to bail me out. MacArthur Park and the 1950s style bus rides still make me smile. Being with him was a constant adventure. He was fearless and had no boundaries that I ever saw. My Uncle Joe always encouraged the curious and inquisitive side of us. Many times when we were young and mom was not well, Uncle Joe would come to the rescue. I remember the bbq on the beach in Oxnard under dark skies and wind. He didn’t mind so neither did we! Or the time we went to a restaurant on one of the piers in Socal and the waves were crashing the boardwalk and smacking the windows. He just took us in anyway like this is fun. And it was!! I learned to appreciate the spontaneity of life from Uncle Joe. I remember a Christmas present he sent when I was around 11. It was an intricate clear plastic, life size model of the human skull…! Dad and Mom had a cow! Uncle Joe started me a few years later in his hobby of stamp collecting. Right about that time the Goss family left for the South Pacific. I would try to keep up by finding stamps from that part of the globe. I believe it was 1968 when Uncle Joe offered to take me to Samoa, sort of a de facto adoption as mom was not doing well and he wanted Walter to have someone to play with. Man was I intrigued.. l Like Carol said, adventures with him were a gas. Growing up with his visits and communications gave me a strong sense of history, geography, and cultures. Uncle Joe should have been a salesman for Encyclopedia Brittanica. Yes my Uncle Joe could turn the Ravioi magic anytime. I remember he came to visit around June of 1980. I had no idea what he would want to do and had limited time because of work. So he just out of the blue asked if there were any good swimming holes around…yep we ended up in Steel Lake with just what we had on! He was such a blast. I remember how him mom would tell us the stories of swimming the rips off Santa Monica and going for miles in the ocean current. They explained how there was nothing to fear if you just relaxed and went with it. That paid off for me many many times… Uncle Joe was smart, yes. But the fact is he was just so superior. Denise and I and a young Abby had a wonderful time in Virginia with him around 1990. His knowledge of the historical context of everything we visited was immense. Of course we had to go bother The Supreme Court…I surely miss and regret not being able to spend more time with him. Thank you Cousin Hope and Cousin Walter for this wonderful time on here. There is no chance he will be forgotten…

  2. Carol Hungerford
    @

    Uncle Joe. So many stories it hard to pick one. He was always so much fun. When I was 11 he came to visit us in Seattle with Pat, Hope, and Walt. Without a thought, he took my brother Bill with them on a trip to Victoria, British Columbia.. It was the most exotic adventure I had been on so far. We rode the train and stayed in a downtown hotel, ate Chinese food in China town, spaghetti in a real Italian restaurant and road around in taxis. My eyes were popping out of my head! It was really generous to take us but he never acted like we were little kids, he always instead treated us like pals.

    Over the years my mother Ginny and him wrote each other long letters, his always on yellow legal pads, so we were always aware of him off somewhere interesting in the world. Of course hearing how our cousins lived in the Pacific was fascinating. And for Christmas or our birthdays he would send the most unusual gifts you can imagine. When I was quite small he sent a huge 6 foot paper mache peacock that my parents had no idea what to do with. He would send dolls from foreign lands or strange shoes, silk, or some kind of artifact like an unusual Chinese weapon which I have somewhere and don’t know what to do either with but it is so curious that I can’t let it go. So I run across theses treasures in my drawers or keepsake boxes, marvel at them and think of him fondly.

    My favorite story of Uncle Joe is when he came to Los Angeles to visit friends and family. He was on a mission too this trip as he had my Grandma Dorothy’s ashes in a manila envelope with him. Well part of them anyway. Some he scattered in Virginia. Anyway, I was pregnant with my firstborn son and he came and picked me with my husband who he had just met for the first time, and in Joe fashion, away we went on an adventure. First we went to Forest Lawn and sprinkled some ashes on my grandfather’s grave. They had long since been divorced but no matter. Then we went to Beverly Hills and spread some in the rose gardens along Santa Monica Boulevard. Finally, we ended up in Sherman Oaks where grandpa had built a house and sprinkled them I think across the street in a undeveloped space. Grant and I were very surprised by all this but I don’t know why really because he was always doing something unusual it seemed.

    In his latter years we had him to the house when he was in town but really he loved going out best with the more the merrier. Even when it became terrifying to take out a frail man on a walker who didn’t necessarily know he was frail, off we would go. I have the most profound appreciation for Hope who bore the weight of getting him to and fro which sometimes really did became an ordeal. But his insistence and her sacrifice enabled all of us to enjoy each other’s company with champagne of course.

    Uncle Joe’s gifts were many. He was very smart and gave us a strong appreciation for our family history. He was also very cheerful and interested in what you were doing. His curiosity, his deep love of his family and adventurous spirit will carry on. As I write this I find myself itching to do something fun, some interesting, some kind of Uncle Joe adventure!

  3. Farine Yeganegi
    @

    Dear Hope and family,
    What a beautiful send off for you dad by celebrating his life! May he Rest In Peace!

  4. Abby (Goss) Nelson Ross
    @

    Dear Hope and Walter
    Greetings from across the miles and years! We are so sorry to hear from my Mom of your Dad’s passing. What a completely wonderful person he was, and how fortunate Adam and I were to know him and spend some time with him especially while we lived in Virginia. I’m very sorry that I lost contact with him when he moved out to California.

    I think my favorite memory of him will be of pushing his little rowboat out onto the teeny pond in Virginia with a bottle of champagne in one hand and champagne glasses in the other flanked by his girlfriend du jour. The oar was kind of an after thought. Or walking the little paths on his property while he shared the history of the place or our family or whatever. He was always so interesting and entertaining and enthusiastic.

    I’m attaching a photo of him from our wedding which I love and thought you might too (if you haven’t already seen it). In perfect Joe style, he got lost in Connecticut on the drive up and missed the ceremony but was there for the reception. I feel so lucky to have even a bit of his DNA.

    If you’ve ever considered a trip to Kenya – we’ll be here another 2 years and have plenty of space for visitors! (COVID can’t last forever.)

    Lots of love to you both-
    Abby (Goss) Nelson Ross

  5. Cousin Fred Wampler
    @

    MY COUSIN JOE GOSS- I WISH I KNEW HIM BETTER

    The earliest recollection of my departed cousin is of his picture hanging in an elaborate gold frame on the walls of my grandmother Posey’s house in Terre Haute, Indiana. The portrait had won some kind of photography contest so Aunt Dorothy, his mother, then gifted it to my grandparents. . It showed the face of ‘Little Joey” with a headful of ringlet curls. I remember asking my grandma why he had “girls hair” but cannot, for the life of me, recall her answer. Many years later, Dorothy still had it hanging above her bed in the nursing home where she spent her last days.

    My family, Aunt Jean and Dave, and grandparents still lived in Terre Haute, but Dorothy and Joe Senior plus Joe’s sister Ginny ,had moved some years before to California for business reasons. This made them fascinating personages in my young eyes, and I wondered how they could see mountains and desert at the same time and if they knew any movie stars.

    I received responses to some of these questions when their family would visit Terre Haute for a few weeks each summer, making the long trip across American by train My sister Dojie and I had many unforgettable times with Joey and Ginny but usually let them lead the way because they were substantially older and had better ideas about what to do on a mid-western summer afternoon.

    Even after he was graduated from college, Joe continued to visit our Terre Haute “contingent” on his own whenever he was just “passing though” or could purposely schedule it. He liked nothing better than getting the whole Posey tribe together for a dinner rendezvous at either Aunt Jean’s lake or in our basement recreation room which we did not use very much. .I remember one time my mother insisted he clean it first. Since he had brought no work clothes He and I , now a teenager, hosed the room down in our underwear.

    I was in the Navy myself in the late 1950’s and stationed in San Francisco. My ship was scheduled to arrive in port from the Pacific on the exact day of Joe’s wedding to sweet Pat, but would it be in time to make the ceremony?. The event itself was held in the picturesque house of a good friend on Russian Hill. After a lightning change of attire and frantic taxi ride, I missed the actual vows but did manage to revel at the reception following. .

    After that, I visited Joe and Pat several times and at different residences. Each time I was treated to their grand hospitality and a fine chance for family “catch-up.” This continued even after I was married in Philadelphia and Joe and Pat had forsaken California for Virginia. For quite a few years,Lura and I would trek southward during the kids’ spring vacation and spend at least one of our evenings with them.
    Pat’s wonderful, made-from-scratch enchiladas were not to be missed.

    It was no question my mother Mary Lib and Aunt Jean always considered Joe as one of their absolute favorites and I believe that attraction was mutual. He always liked the ladies. The last time we saw each other was at my daughter Eliza’s wedding here in Pennsylvania. He was so smart, energetic, considerate and fun. I wish I knew him better.

  6. Jane landau
    @

    My brother and I may have known cousin Joe longer than anyone at this time. We met him in 1945 when we were six and four and joe was a handsome nineteen year old in a navy uniform. We all reconnected almost thirty years later when he returned to DC where my brother was also living. I remember a lovely luncheon when pat was still alive and later visits with joe alone which did often involve champagne. All of these time leave me with memories of a bright, enthusiastic man. He was special.

  7. Terri Kruger
    @

    I am grateful to be invited to share in this celebration of life for it is providing me the chance to learn more about what a remarkable man Joe Goss for I can appreciate and understand more about his exceptional daughter and the rest of her family who I have the pleasure to get to know
    more about each day.

  8. Bob Perkins
    @

    Dear Joe,
    You will always be a great uncle of mine. All memories Included laughs, fun, and love. It was always an exciting event when we as children learned Uncle Joe was visiting or we were going up to his place in Oxnard, Ca.

    May god bless you Joe and your loving family of Pat, Hope, Walter, Ginny, and the other members with whom I never met.,