Sad news. We lost another brother.
Brother Joe Green passed away quietly and peacefully, and not entirely unexpectedly given a history of heart disease. On January 11, 2024, at his home in Farley, Missouri, about 25 miles NW of Kansas City, Missouri, Joe was taking care of some things around the house, sat down in his wife’s car, and quietly passed away. Joe made a lot of friends, had a great life and enjoyed many things in his 82 years. It definitely was a life well lived.
Joe was born in Bell, California, on December 28, 1941. His parents, like many others of that era, had migrated to California, having moved from the Kansas/Oklahoma area, settling in West Covina and then Claremont. Joe’s father was a graduate of the University of Kansas and his mother studied music in college.
In California, Joe’s parents were fortunate to be able to ride the popularity crest of the most successful musical organ ever made, the Hammond Organ, invented in the mid-1930s and heavily marketed as a home-music instrument for much of the middle decades of that century, with over 2 million of them being sold. When Joe was growing up, his parents owned and ran a number of stores selling Hammond Organs and pianos up and down Southern California, from San Diego to Los Angeles, including a store in Pomona.
Joe attended Claremont High School. He played football there, but was a year younger than most of his classmates and not a big guy—maybe 5’8’ and 140 lbs. Claremont High had some very strong teams in those years. Their legendary football coach for 18 years, Leonard Cohn, had a record of 141-19-1, including winning a CIF championship in 1958. And they had a bunch of very big guys playing, including Joe’s high school classmate and later Pi Sigma Chi fraternity brother, Carl Myers (F61; Hon. Zeta 63-64) at 6’6” and about 250+ lbs. Joe was not big, but he was an athlete and he wanted to be on the field, so he played on the JV team and had a great time. Joe and Carl both graduated in 1959. Other Claremont HS friends who later became Pi Sigma Chi brothers included Dean Wickstrom (S61; CE unk.), Bill Gray (F62; Hon Iota 64-65), Darryl Sharum (S61), Dave Jones (F62) and others.
How Joe happened to attend Cal Poly Pomona where he joined Pi Sigma Chi is an interesting story, reflective of a very different time in the application and acceptance process at Cal Poly Pomona, then a very new, rapidly growing branch campus of Cal Poly SLO, with less than 2,500 students. Joe was the oldest of the four Green kids. His parents had both gone to college and wanted their kids to do the same, preferring that he go to USC. But unlike his younger brothers and his sister in years to come, all of whom went to USC, Joe was working in the family business during and after high school, including delivering organs and pianos, and didn’t really want to go to college at all. According to Joe’s wife, Molly, after working at the organ and piano stores for a year after high school, his father told Joe he was going to college whether he wanted to or not, so he took Joe to Cal Poly and signed him up. it was that simple back then.
Joe started as a landscape architecture major and enjoyed it, but a professor at Claremont College, the father of a girl he was dating at the time, told him he was not gong to make money in that field and should change majors. But instead of suggesting business or economics majors, which would have related to what Joe eventually did as a career, for some reason the professor suggested Joe switch to social science, which he did. That change, and some time outs along the way, meant that Joe did not graduate until 1966. [Photo left is from 1962 Madre Tierra, thanks to Founder Larry Stalions (12Pack57)].
It turned out that when he went to Cal Poly, Joe, just like Carl a year later, found some of his Claremont HS friends there and pledged Pi Sig in the Fall of 1960.
Joe loved being in the fraternity. He lived in the fraternity house at 3101 Pomona, rooming with Dudley Lewis (F60; Hon. Epsilon 62-62) and Bill Shelton (S60). He enjoyed a beer and a party, but he was not an extrovert. He did not demand a lot of attention and could be kind of quiet, but he was a great guy with a wonderful, dry, some say “deadpan,” sense of humor that could easily crack people up and he was always up for some fun. Carl Myers recalls an “explosive” incident Joe caused at the 3101 house. It was when the fraternity had a full-on, genuine "French chef," Henre, trained at the Waldorf Astoria, but with a drinking history. He was a fabulous cook, preparing full-on French cuisine, served in the dining room, with Brothers wearing white shirts and ties. Someone decided it would be great to show off to their local Representative to Congress, John Rousselot (Republican and, unclear if the brothers knew this, a Director of the John Birch Society at the time) to join them. Rep. Rousselot accepted, appeared, and all went well. Then, during the dinner, some home-brewed beer made by Joe, stored in a closet off the dining room, started to go off, popping caps, making noise and smelling bad. Somehow the noise and aroma was ignored, everyone finished dinner and no issue was made of Joe’s home brewery.
Jim Zangger (F62) recalled when he and Joe decided to go Mazatlan, Mexico, during the summer of 1964, driving there in Jim’s 1957 Chevy. They recruited Joe’s friend from Claremont HS, Hector, and Brother Bill Ward (S63) to join them. In the middle of the night, near Phoenix, a big gust of wind blew through the car and took some of their documents, birth certificates, etc., out of the car. They all voted on whether to turn around and go home or continue. The majority voted to continue, deciding to try to bribe their way into Mexico. They crossed the border at Nogales about noon the next day, got the documents they needed after paying a small bribe, and continued to Guaymas, over 500 miles from Pomona, where they spent the night before continuing to Mazatlan, which was another 700 miles. They arrived there at 11 pm the next night, buying gas along the way that came in 5 gallon tins, and dealing with torrential rains enroute. They spent two weeks on the beach in Mazatlan, swimming, fishing, meeting local people, drinking beer and exploring the city. In Jim’s words, “It was a trip none of us would ever forget, and [on the long trip home] I don’t remember us stopping.”
Joe got married in April 1966. The story of how he and his wife of 57+ years, Molly, met is a lesson for brothers who are foolish enough to bring a great date to a fraternity party and allow themselves to get distracted. Molly graduated from Glendora HS and after a year attending what back then was Missoula College, was back home and in 1965 was going to Cal Poly Pomona. Her best friend was dating Brother Jim Zangger (F62), and convinced Molly to go to a Pi Sig fraternity party at the second fraternity house, at 866 Foothill in San Dimas, as the date for Brother Jim Sisson (S60). However, while they were at the party, Brother Sisson wandered off to use the bathroom. Molly sat on the stairs waiting and Joe zeroed in, beer in hand and a smile on his face. Joe introduced himself to Molly, they started talking, and it seems it was a storybook case of “love at first sight.”
When Joe graduated, he worked for a while for his father, then landed a position involving musical instruments that were a lot easier to deliver than organs or pianos—he joined Fender Guitar Co., dealing with sales and distribution. He later was hired by Yamaha Motorcycle Co. to deal with their sales and distribution in the US. Yamaha moved him and his family to Oregon, which they loved, living there for a number of years until Joe was hired as the President of Stentofon, the US branch of a Norwegian company in the health care systems field, with their US base located in Kansas City. And after that company was bought out by a German company that replaced everyone, Joe was hired by a Swedish company to serve as President of Best Health Care Communications, also based in Kansas City, responsible for the 3 US, Canada and South America. Molly explains that Joe always traveled a great deal, first to Japan with Yamaha, and later to Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, and to South America and all around the US and Canada. Joe loved learning the diverse business cultures that he interacted with, stressing that he learned you could be effective if you tried to deal with everyone the same as one might in the US. The two of them were able to travel together for many of the business conferences at which the companies hosted clients and distributors, often with their spouses, wining and dining them. They loved those trips of course, and were able to visit many wonderful places around the world. Joe was President at Best Health for 22 years, retiring in July, 2023.
Along the way, Joe and Molly had three girls. Two are college graduates and the third has her own business. At one point all three of them, plus Molly, were in college at the same time, while Joe was paying lots of tuition and cheering them on. They now have six grandkids (three boys, three girls), five of whom graduated from college and the other has her own bakery business.
The family had great times over the years, enjoying lots of outdoor activities, horseback riding, snow skiing, boating, water skiing and fishing. Joe himself was a history buff, especially the history of the US, in particular anything “Western” or “cowboy.” And he would make sure they stopped to see anything unusual on their trips—even things like the world’s largest yarn ball.
Unfortunately, Joe had heart problems along the way also. His father had died of heart disease. Joe had bypass surgery at age 50 and three years ago he had a heart attack when he and Molly were visiting Yellowstone Park. So Joe’s passing this month was not a total surprise, but was very sad and came too soon.
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that people consider making a donation in Joe’s memory to his favorite charity, St. Joseph’s Indian School (www.stjo.org/give). As we do in these circumstances, we are making a small donation to that organization in Joe’s memory on behalf of our fraternity alumni group. We will remember and honor Joe and our other recently departed Brothers at our next gathering, our luncheon at Cal Poly on April 19th.
“Here’s to Brother Joe, he’s with us, he’s with us . . . .”
