Joseph A. Hynes

1927 - 2019

Joseph Anthony Hynes Jr., a gentleman and a scholar, died on Jan. 21, days after his 92nd birthday. A devoted husband, father and Catholic, he had been a Professor of English literature and an administrator at the University of Oregon, where he taught for over 50 years.

Joe was born in Detroit, during its heyday, to Joseph Anthony, a pharmacist, and Mary Kinney Hynes on Jan. 9, 1927. As a senior at University of Detroit Jesuit High School, he was drafted and spent two years in the Army spanning the end of World War II. He served as a medic, and - because he was tall - was chosen to guard the White House.

After his military service, Joe attended Loyola University Chicago on the G.I. Bill. He graduated from the University of Detroit, and then earned a Ph.D in English Literature from the University of Michigan.

Joe loved jazz and swing music, attending high school dances where Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey performed, as well as seeing Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton at Chicago's Blue Note for the "price of a bottle of beer."

In 1951, Joe married college classmate Mary Jane Rohr. In 1957, they moved across the country for a professorship at the University of Oregon, where he taught his entire career. In the 1980s and '90s, he served first as the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and then as Vice Provost of the University. He was a beloved and popular lecturer, who taught with dry wit, warmth and delight in his subject.

Joe's expertise was in modern British novels and plays, with a special emphasis on Henry James and authors who had converted to Catholicism, such as Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and Muriel Spark. His book on Spark - "The Art of the Real" - was published in 1988. He edited another collection of Spark criticism in 1992, and published numerous papers on subjects as diverse as Arthur Miller, Tom Stoppard and the crime fiction of his high school classmate Elmore Leonard.

An avid theater-goer, Joe saw countless original productions on London's West End, and was a decades-long devotee of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as well as theaters in Eugene and Portland. He loved movies, seeing one or two every week at the Bijou and other local cinemas. He was a self-described terrible and committed golfer, happily frustrated fan of all Detroit sports teams, and season-ticket holder for U of O basketball and football. He attended Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Eugene for over 60 years, where he served as a reader and eucharistic minister.

Joe traveled extensively. He and his family spent the 1967-'68 academic year on sabbatical in London. He taught at the Daido Institute in Nagoya, Japan, in 1983 and the University of Tubingen in Germany in 1985.

Joe was lucky enough to be blessed with two happy marriages. His first wife, Mary, died in 1998; in 2000, at the age of 73, he married JoAnne Klopfenstein, a union that gave him an energetic second act throughout his later years.

In semi-retirement, Joe continued to teach specialty courses at U of O. He also lectured at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and was an active member of the play-reading and classics book-reading groups there. In 2000, he founded a Religion and Literature book group at St. Mary's, which he continued to lead until his death. Books, as he said days before his passing, were his second nature.

In addition to his parents and first wife, Mary, Joe was preceded in death by his brothers, Terrence and William, and sister, Mary Ann Ranusch.

Joe is survived by his wife, JoAnne; his children, Tom (Hope), Mary (John Kerr) and Martin (Zoya); his grandchildren Rachel Kerr, Michael Hynes, Ada Gilead Hynes and Evan Kienle; his stepchildren, Bethany Klopfenstein (Eric Kienle) and Shaun Klopfenstein (Andrea); and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

All are invited to his funeral Mass on Friday, Feb. 22, at 12:15 p.m. at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Eugene. A reception will immediately follow.

Donations in Joe's memory may be made to Food for Lane County (where he volunteered for years) or the University of Detroit Jesuit High School.

The family thanks Joe's caregivers for their care and kindness.