Ron's Uncle Joe

Garden Grove, California  (Christmas 1968)

Joseph Stephen Karpinski  (1927-1998)

Joe was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois; hence, he was known as "Chicago Joe,"

as distinguished from the other Uncle Joe who hailed from Eureka, California, and

received, quite logically, the moniker of "Eureka Joe."  Chicago Joe entered World

War II in 1944, as a seventeen-year-old, serving as an infantryman in Italy,  Before

the war ended, he had attained the rank of corporal and was offered a promotion to

sergeant, if only he would reenlist; but he declined.  Joe never married, but he did

once mention that there had been a woman in Italy -- no details, just the inference

of a wartime romance that fate and circumstance had crushed in the bud.  To earn

a living, Joe installed aluminum patio roofs and screened-in porches.  In early 1961,

he drove to California and applied his trade there -- a warm climate and year-round

market.  Joe remained in California for nearly twenty years, renting an inexpensive

bungalow in the city of Buena Park.  He eventually returned to Chicago, however, and

lived out the remainder of his life there, dying from cancer at the age of seventy.