Obituaries - Feb. 4, 2010

Joseph Wagner

Memorial service for Joseph Walker Wagner will be Saturday, Feb 6, at 10:30 a.m., at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Colfax. Mr. Wagner, who was born in Farmington Jan. 4, 1922, died January 23, 2010.

In 1940, his junior year of high school, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was posted to Hickam Field, Hawaii.

After surviving the Pearl Harbor attack, he served in the Pacific Theatre with the 7th Air Force until the end of the war.

He married Ruth Elaine Cloaninger in 1945.

He continued to serve in the Air National Guard from 1947 to 1950.

After graduating from Gonzaga University he obtained a master’s degree in social work from the University of Ottawa in 1956.

His social work career spanned 30 years of service to the community, first at Catholic Charities, then the state of Washington, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs and, after his retirement from the BIA, Riverside General Hospital.

His work moved the family through several towns in Washington and Idaho, and eventually to Southern California in 1972.

He and his wife returned to Spokane in 1986 to be close to friends and family and spent more than 20 years of retirement there. He played in the 1988 Codger Bowl football game that is memorialized at the Codger Pole in Colfax.

For the last two years they have lived with their son and daughter-in-law in Riverside, Calif. In September, they celebrated 64 years of marriage. Mrs. Wagner died in October.

Joe Wagner had a profound commitment to helping others, especially disadvantaged youth. He had keen and wide-ranging interests in science, history and the natural world. His love of people and of learning led him to participate in many organizations, from the Rotary Club to the Coulee Dam Volunteer Police Officers to the Spokane Mushroom Society.

His creative spirit expressed itself in gem cutting, jewelry making, photography and water color painting. In his later years he devoted much of his time to the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association and the Civilian Conservation Corps. He was active member of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Spokane.

Survivors include his daughter Theresa Wagner (Elio Longobardi) of San Francisco, Calif .; his son Daniel (Victoria) Wagner, of Riverside, Calif .; his brother, Monte Wagner of Salem, Ore., and two grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund: http://www.pearlharbormemorial.com.

Online condolences: bruningfuneralhome. com.