Joseph Wayne Adler

Joseph (“Joe” / “Jofie”) Wayne Adler of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, died of Parkinson’s disease on February 5, 2026, at the age of eighty-five. Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, to Natalie (“Nettie”) and Isaac Edward (“Bim”) Adler on July 13, 1940, Joe grew up in Sharon, East Pittsburgh, and Squirrel Hill. At nine, he was struck in the forehead with a baseball; the injury wound up saving his life when doctors treating him discovered a fast-growing brain tumor that likely would have killed him within a year. A series of experimental surgeries in New York City and Boston removed the tumor but cost him his left eye—he would wear an eye patch for the rest of his life. He went on to graduate from Taylor Allderdice High School (class of 1958), where he played the clarinet, was in the Sigma Kappa fraternity, served as president of the Key Club, and made many lifelong friends, including Sheldon Liebman, Chuckie Kalson, and Bob Nassau. He subsequently received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Pittsburgh.

A young man of prodigious charm, plus a burgeoning passion for culture (especially jazz), sports, community organizing, and social justice, Joe met his first wife, Diane Litman, in 1956 at a Saint Patrick’s Day party. They dated through high school and summer camps before getting married with a luncheon at the Carlton House in Pittsburgh. They lived on Beechwood Boulevard and then Alderson Street, and they welcomed a daughter, Jennifer, into their lives on Christmas Eve of 1962. After they divorced, Joe met his second wife, Nancy Ferrari, in West Virginia while they were counseling draft resisters on how to evade the Vietnam War. It was a testament to his charisma that he first needed to woo her away from her then-husband, Jesus Christ, because until they met she had spent her entire adult life as a Franciscan nun. They had two sons, Jofie and Scott, before divorcing in 1982.

Joe was shaped by—and did his part to help shape—the anti-war counterculture era of the 1960s and ’70s. According to family lore, in April 1968 he was one of the hundreds of young men who handed their draft cards to folk singer Joan Baez for burning at an anti-draft demonstration in New York City’s Central Park. In that same turbulent period he worked in civil rights and anti-poverty offices in the cities of Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Saginaw, Michigan, and Charleston, West Virginia. After several years of living simply on the land on a farm in remote Wind Ridge, Pennsylvania, he moved back to Pittsburgh in the late 1980s and bought a home on Ebdy Street in Squirrel Hill. He then spent more than twenty years furthering his commitment to social justice as an investigator of workplace discrimination for the Pittsburgh office of the state of Pennsylvania’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After his retirement, Joe continued to serve others by teaching classes on classic films for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. When he sold his home and moved to the Riverview senior-living apartments, he continued to look for ways to shine light on others, including as a correspondent for the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. (See jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com
/the-secret-life-of-a-century-old-scrabble-queen.)

Joe was a man of many passions—for progressive politics and human rights; for culture and the arts in all their forms; for friends, family, romantic partners, and even complete strangers; and for sports and other outdoor activities, especially swimming and golf, which he pursued religiously. He passed these passions along to his children, grandchildren, great-grandchild, and nephews, whom he adored and took enormous pride in. He is survived by a vast network of friends and family that includes his brother and sister-in-law, Rich and Leone Adler, and their daughter and son-in-law, Dawn and Matt Minegar, and their sons Benjamin and Oliver; his brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Riane Adler; his daughter and son-in-law, Jennifer and Carl Freed, and their son, Trevor, and their daughter and son-in-law, Savannah and Noah Simon, and their son, Eli; his son Jofie Ferrari-Adler, and his daughter, Mabel, and his son, George; his son and daughter-in-law, Scott and Christine Ferrari-Iksic, and their daughter, Tallulah.

A celebration of Joe’s life will be held at 12 pm on Monday, April 20, 2026, at the Arnold Palmer Learning Center at the Bob O’Connor Golf Course (formerly known as the Schenley Park Golf Course) at 5370 Schenley Drive in Squirrel Hill. All are welcome, and more information, including how to RSVP, can be found here: jofieadlermemorial.rsvpify.com. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Parkinson’s Foundation: www.parkinson.org.

May his memory be a blessing.