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Everybody needs an Uncle Joe

ESCANABA -- Everybody needs an Uncle Joe.

As you know, I love words and writing comes easy for me.

But this is not an easy type of column to write. It is the most important kind of column to write.

My Uncle Joe Verbrigghe Sr. passed away rather unexpectedly on Friday, March 29. This leaves a big empty gap in my wonderful and crazy extended family.

Joe was not a local leader, athlete or business man. He was way more important than that. He was a family man.

And to him everyone was family.

He was married to my Aunt Sandy (my mother's sister) for fifty-eight years. Their love story is epic and a perfect example of commitment and devotion for all of us. Sandy and Joe did everything together from ice fishing and being out at deer camp to planting pumpkins and sausage making.

But the greatest thing in Joe's life was the family that he and Sandy tended so well. Three children, three granddaughters, two great-grandchildren and dozens of nieces, nephews, and cousins, Joe was never lonely.

Holidays like the 4th of July, Easter and Christmas found Joe in the midst of fifty-plus people. His famous Labor Day cookout at his camp hosted even more than that.

Any day of the week, Joe's back door was opened and the coffee pot was on. I wonder just how many hunting stories, fishing stories, wolf reports, bird sightings and jokes and laughter were shared with him and family around that table?

Joe was raised on a farm in St. Nicholas. He left school to work on the farm at a young age. Through the years, Joe worked for Bacco Construction, Eaton Machine and Harnischfeger Corporation. He had an amazing mechanical mind. He could take anything apart and put it back together again.

Joe, with help from Joe Jr., family and friends, established their family camp just between the farm's meadow and the lovely woods. Almost everything from the sauna to the sheds are homemade. From the bird feeder to the cozy fire pit, it is a place of great beauty.

He fixed things, tractors, cars, clocks, snow blowers... he even fixed a leg support on my mother's wheelchair years ago. "If it don't go... give it to Joe" was our family's saying.

I wonder how many items Joe fixed or repaired in his basement shop over the decades.

Joe had his priorities in the right order. At family gatherings Joe talked to the little kids first. New babies always smiled for Uncle Joe first. Joe could not come into your house without talking to and giving a tummy rub to your family dog first.

If you needed a hand with something or just someone to listen to you Joe was always there. Joe was not just one of my dad's brothers-in-law, but one of dad's best friends.

Joe wore mostly camouflage colored clothes. He did not boast or brag or draw attention to himself. He just blended into the scenery and that was his family and friends.

The world does not need many more college graduates, politicians or highfalutin experts. The world sure could use a lot more Uncle Joes.

He touched so many lives and taught us well. We will pass it on.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.