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JOSEPH HANDLEY Obituary
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Memories and Condolences
for JOSEPH HANDLEY
Janie Batty-Palmer
July 5, 2010
Dear Handley Family,
Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this time. Mr. Handley will surely be missed. If there is anything we can do please don't hesitate to ask. Our number is 215-632-2865.
Alice Sawa
June 30, 2010
Dear Kathy, I am so sorry for you and your family. You have been thru so much and stayed strong. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Betty & Skip Munroe
June 30, 2010
Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family
John and Betty Scollon
June 30, 2010
Dear Joe:
Our hearts are heavy and our eyes filled with tears. Words can't express the sorrow that we feel. We will miss your warm heart, your great laughter, your friendship, but most of all your presence. Colman Place will never be the same. We will never be the same. God saw what a special person you were and took you home. Dear Friend....you will be in our hearts, always. Until we meet again.
Terry Dunn
June 30, 2010
In Memorial
Of
Joseph Robert Handley Sr.
June 24, 2010
Beloved Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Uncle, Friend, and Philly Fan, Joe Handley had many roles during his now short life and he made an impression wherever he went. He carried each of these roles with grace and ease. The role for many of us here, and the one that stands out to me especially, is that of Family Patriarch.
Prior to that role, Joe, as a twelve or thirteen year old, created for me, my earliest memory of him. This included; Uncle Joe, three year old me, a garbage pail, a banana peel and the little box brownie camera in Nanny’s backyard. The set up was perfect. My trust of him was total. I adored him completely. “Okay” he said “now take the top off the garbage pail and sit it on the ground, now see that banana peel? Pick it up and hold it in the air over your head, now open your mouth wide like you are gonna eat it, okay hold it, got it! Good Girl.” He would lord that photo over me at every opportunity for most of the next 37 years, until he trusted the postal service, and sent the original negative to a poster company trying to have one created for my 40th birthday. It got lost in the mail, but the prank is legend and is one of my best memories.
Joe entered the military as a skinny teenage boy during the turbulent 1960’s and served in Vietnam honorably; we even got a look at him during a Bob Hope Special. I remember that like it was yesterday, that skinny GI with the crazy short hair cut and those crooked bottom teeth to really let us know that it was really him. Joe returned a man and married Carol, the love of his life while on leave and the couple spent a tour of duty in Germany, they returned safely to the states with their beautiful dog Gretchen, their love of dogs brought each of them much joy. Soon the couple welcomed their son Joe jr. Joe was a hard worker and as a very young man was providing for his family and caring for each of their mothers’ as well as looking out for his three sisters and their interests. It was during this time that he became most adept a performing the duties of superhero at the drop of a pin. His role as family Patriarch was born and growing.
Joe was a very talented carpenter and all around craftsmen. His work ethics along with his many talents have become the stuff of lore and legend. It was not long before everyone knew of his superior abilities and Joe was doing side jobs after a full day of working and on the weekends. Eventually, Joe and Carol decided that Joe would become Handley Home Improvements full time. Joe never needed to advertise, not in the phone book, not in the penny saver. Word of mouth and satisfied customers turned into lifetime friends, kept Joe more than busy for years. Through the course of his business, he mentored and apprenticed his son and his nephews, at one time or another he had performed any and every job imaginable for his mothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. We are a very grateful family to Aunt Carol and Little Joe for so generously sharing him with all of us as often as you no doubt did. We hope that you know that we are all here for you and that we will not allow you to carry your loss alone.
Joe’s sense of humor and his affinity for the practical joke can not be minimized. On the day of his Niece Laura’s wedding, Joe, impersonating the Southern minister phoned his sister Joanne and was sorry to inform her that the Sanctuary had been flooded by some broken pipes (in June) and that the nuptials would need to be relocated he prattled on about the patience of Job and about how these are indeed the ways in which our faith in the Lord shall be tested I do declare!
Or the time that he telephoned Lynnette after a prolonged hospital stay, where during his visit to her, they noticed a dead cockroach on the floor, he then, some months later telephoned impersonating the Insurance adjuster that was looking for which address they would like for him to mail the settlement check for her pain and suffering the cockroach experience.
Or, worse still, when he telephoned Suzette and her husband, while they each worked in a night club, back in early college days, this time impersonating an LCB agent with accusations of underage service to minors. The couple notified superiors and teleconferenced with corporate attorneys before that prank got over.
There have been many a time when answering the telephone to find anyone with an accent really set you to spinning, Aunt Kathy told me about screaming at an innocent stranger thinking that it was her brother Joe. The day that Caller ID had become main stream was a dark day indeed for Joe Handley.
Recently he remembered the US Postal Service, over this past winter we received a little Christmas card with a photo and a note from the Handley’s. The photo was of a rather battered Aunt Carol and the note finished with an “I guess I should have known when to keep my mouth shut” Of course I did not know then that she had taken a spill on some uneven concrete at the Franklin Mills Post Office. I phoned him immediately and let him know that that was not funny. God Love Carol for her willingness to follow his pranks. I can only imagine how much you will miss his company.
In gathering my thoughts, I found myself saying out loud “What I Know…” and here it is:
I know that he adored his wife, his son, the daughter of his heart Maria and the apple of his eye, Regan.
I know that when he engaged you in conversation, you had his undivided attention; he made you feel like the only person in the room.
I know that he had a soft spot for widows and would rather die than to ever take advantage of one.
I know that he had a drop everything and respond to your crisis sort of attitude.
I know that at every picnic, family gathering, holiday or occasion where there were children to be present, there had to be skittles, skittles and more skittles everybody loved them and everybody got them. Skittles were second only to the dollar coins, these became the price that he willingly paid to have the children and many of the adults praise him ceaselessly, I have to say that last Christmas I made a few bucks. His youthful appearance and looking so trim, how could I not remark?
I know that those hearing aids made it a little harder to find him in a crowd, Lord before them he could be heard far and wide. Thank God he was so funny.
I know that his good Humor and his amazing smile aside; he was a man of honor and substance. His ability to be focused, and unwavering in his commitment to his endeavor was more than admirable, it was a part of who he was. He was at all times a perfectionist and would not settle for less than that from him self always, particularly in his service to others.
I know how he adored his wife and cared for her always, I know how precious their rituals were to him, like the way he would make a milkshake each evening. I think that he may be the only husband from whom I had never heard a single complaint ever!
I know how proud that he was of his son Joe and the fine man that he had become, he was also grateful that his son had also found the love of his life in his own wife Maria and that Regan was a precious gift that he was so happy to have. He voice would light up when he spoke of Regan and you could see how much he loved her when he looked at her.
I know that he so loved his Mother In Law Ann, and cared for her as he did his own mother. He always spoke lovingly of her and appreciated her role in their family.
I know that he adored his sisters, Joanne, Kathleen and Suzanne and that feeling was more than mutual. Each of the sisters’ mother-henned over him when ever given the opportunity. He loved, loved, loved the cooking of his sisters and each of them felt such joy in cooking for him that as they prepare his favorites in the future there will no doubt be a bitter sweetness that finds its way into those favorites.
Joe was only 10 years my senior, and as my sisters and I were fatherless ourselves at a tender age, Joe made himself available where and when he could. During these past few days as the gravity of his passing becomes more real to me I feel that I am becoming more and more aware of the gift that having Joe Handley as my uncle has really meant to me. I have always felt his presence in my life, and I have always known that his counsel, should I want or need it, was only ever a phone call away. He has throughout my life encouraged my strengths and made me feel that I could do anything.
I know that for each of us here, who had the honor to know and experience Joe Handley during their lives are feeling this loss indeed. His family, his friends, his customers, even those of casual acquaintance will all miss his easy pleasant style, his generous nature and his unfailing dedication to all of those he loved.
This is truly a devastating loss for our family, to loose someone so very bright and too young. This is our second big loss this year, our uncle Tony was taken from us after a long and painful battle.
It would be easy and even natural to be angry and want to rail against God for leaving us so tragically without.
I am going to ask you to take a few moments to let me share some of what I have learned during what I can only describe as a very long season of loss, about two years.
This is the 9th funeral of significance for my husband and I in about 13 months. In many ways this is the most painful loss for me personally as this loss of Uncle Joe, for me, is the loss of the father of my heart.
I have watched the young children of cancer patients for more than two years, in three different families, with all of the hopes and prayers that accompany such times to ultimately go unanswered. I have watched as cancer patients had to further suffer the faces of their loved ones as this thief called cancer tore away at each soul present. This notion of not allowing unfinished business, or unsaid words or deeds in life is the lesson that each loss is available to teach each of us.
Uncle Joe was known to many of my friends over the years. As I shared the news and details of his passing with my friend Lisa, she was of course shocked and devastated as we all were and still are. And then she said “He was so just the embodiment of Life, He just seemed to live each moment so fully”. Those words have been a salve to the wound that this loss has been to my heart. As I have been writing these past few days trying to collect my thoughts, I have become so grateful and my heart has lightened a bit. For me to know that there was no pain for him, no fear for him, no conscious worry for him at all. What a gift to my heart that these truths have become. That his death, will mean that there are a couple of parents who will get to see their child or children for the first time, it makes me so proud that even in death he is improving the quality of life for someone. It seems to me that this is what Joe Handley’s entire life was all about.
I pray that each of you is able to find the peace that he would so want for each of us, and that you are able to feel the love that he had for you always present in your hearts.
Joe, with the way that he lived his life, meant countless friends and admirers and a very grateful family. He will be sorely missed. His quick smile and his big booming laugh that would fill any room will be what I miss most. Joe was always the first in line to lend a hand and his shoes will not be easily filled for any of us. I am eternally grateful that he was ours to love and be loved by. What a gift that he will continue to be for all of us. The love does not die. To my thinking, if you were lucky enough to be loved by Joe Handley, then you were lucky enough indeed. With all my Love, Rest in Peace…………Terry
Mary O'Loughlin
June 28, 2010
The Next Room
"Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you.
What ever we were to each other, that
we still are. Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which you
always used. Put no difference in your tone,
wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes
we enjoyed together. Pray, smile, think of me,
pray for me. Let my name be the household word
that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means
all that it ever meant, It is the same as it ever was;
there is unbroken continuity, Why should I be
out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere
very near, just round the corner. All is well."
~by: Canon Henry Scott Holland~
Rest in Peace, Joe.
Rose Bonaventura
June 28, 2010
My thoughts and prayers are with you in your time of grief. May your memories bring you comfort.
Mike Betz
June 28, 2010
Joe was a great guy to be around. He lived next to my aunt & uncle, Bud & Kathy Cantz. He didn't have a mean bone in his body. Rest in peace pal.
June 27, 2010
To the Handley Family
I worked with Joe at Heintz Corporation and through the years we have reamined friends along with many of the other people. We were all family back then. I recently saw Joe and can't believe this has happened. We were all looking forward to seeing him on Friday night.He was a great person always with a smile. He will be sadly missed.
My heart and prayers are with you.
Barbara Breazeale
(Heintz Corporation)
Cheryl McGrenra
June 27, 2010
Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Cheryl Ovodock McGrenra
Maggie Pagel
June 27, 2010
Joe..
So sorry to hear of your loss. You and your family are in my prayers. Take care.
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