Joseph D. Wallace

Joseph D. Wallace

Joe was born February 17, 1943, in Houston, and passed from this life November 25, 2016, from congestive heart failure at his home in Pinewood, Hardin County, Texas. 

He graduated from Mt. Carmel Catholic High School in Houston in 1961 and attended the University of St. Thomas on a baseball scholarship. As an undergraduate, he joined the US Naval Reserve and served aboard the USS Haynsworth. He later transferred from St. Thomas to the University of Houston, where he graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1966. He then attended OCS in Newport, Rhode Island, and was commissioned into the US Navy in 1967, the first member of his family to serve as an officer in the US military. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor as a member of a team tasked with creating a computer system for the Pacific Fleet. In 1970 he retired from the Navy as a Lieutenant and moved his family back to the Houston area, settling in La Porte. He first taught data processing at La Porte High School, and in 1972 began working in the LPISD business office, where he developed computer systems that the district used for more than two decades. In 1977, after several years of both teaching and working as an administrator, he became a full-time administrator. In 1980 he earned an MBA from UH-CLC and in 1990 his superintendent’s certification from TSU. From 1991 to 1993 he served as CEO of DuPont Federal Credit Union in La Porte. In 1993 he became the Business Manager and Assistant Superintendent for Business at Hardin-Jefferson ISD in Sour Lake, Texas, and moved to Pinewood. In 1997 he retired from HJISD following a heart attack. 

Joe was in love with his high school sweetheart, Mary Martin, for fifty-seven years. He married her July 22, 1966, at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and celebrated fifty years of marriage with her last summer. She survives him, as do his children, Daniel and Laura; granddaughter, Kristina Wuergler and her husband, Ryan; great-grandchildren, Emmett, Levi, and Faith Wuergler;  brother, Marshall Wallace and his wife, Mary Kay; sister, Sharlene Taylor; aunts, Willie Mae Edwards and Christine Eheman; uncle, Michael Eheman and his wife, Shirley; and numerous nephews, nieces, and cousins. 

Joe loved to travel all his life. From his honeymoon in a truck camper, through several combinations of trucks and travel trailers, to motor homes, he loved driving through the American wilderness. He took his family on summer camping trips throughout the western US and Canada, and during his retirement achieved a goal of driving in all fifty states. His “Bucket List” accomplishments included driving to Alaska (including the Al-Can and Trans-Canadian Highways) and to the Canadian Maritime Provinces, boxing the compass to visit the easternmost and westernmost points of the US and North America, as well as the most N, S, NW, NE, SE, and SW points of the continental US, and the geographic centers of both the US and North America. He loved being out in the country and took his family on as many weekend trips as he could during his working life, at first camping trips and later during the 1980s to a cabin on Lake Sam Rayburn, where he loved the piney woods and the lake. When he came to Pinewood, he felt he had found the best of both worlds.

During the 1970s, he exchanged hunting guns for camera lenses as his preferred cylinders to point at wildlife. He took thousands of beautiful pictures throughout his travels, not only of wild creatures but of majestic mountains, vistas, water, and tiny wildflowers. He made rustic frames and hung many of them on his wall or gave them as gifts. He loved to take photographs of all the places and things that made him feel God’s presence in the world, and share them with others. 

During his retirement, besides traveling he enjoyed reading, watching the birds and squirrels on his back deck, smoking briskets, ribs, and chickens, helping to prepare meals, and most of all spending as much time as he could with his great-grandchildren.

A gathering of Mr. Wallace’s family and friends will be from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. with a Christian Vigil at 7:00 p.m., Monday, November 28, 2016, at Broussard’s, 1605 North Major Drive, Beaumont. A funeral mass will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, November 29, 2016, at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church, 225 West Barkley, Sour Lake. His cremation arrangements will be handled through Broussard’s Crematorium, Beaumont.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Correctional Ministries of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, 2403 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77021.