Joseph Fenwick

1931 - 2025

News story
By Kelly Kaczala
Blade Staff Writer

Joseph Wyeth Fenwick III, a dentist and former health commissioner at the Toledo Health Department, died Aug. 18 in Toledo. He was 93.

His daughter, Leslie Fenwick, said he had been receiving in-home hospice care before he died of kidney failure.

"He was never hospitalized until three weeks before he passed," she said. "He never took prescription medications. He really practiced what he learned from public health training and dental school. He was very proud of that."

Geraldine Lindsey, who closely worked with Dr. Fenwick at the health department from 1969 until he retired in 1997, said he was "a real gentleman."

"He was awesome. He respected everyone," Mrs. Lindsey said. "He never looked down on anyone. He was exceptionally kind. Everyone loved him."

Ms. Fenwick remembered her father as a family man who came home for dinner every day and was very involved in his children's lives.

"I never knew a day when my dad didn't seem available to us," Ms. Fenwick said. "He was just a constant, supportive presence."

He also had a sense of humor, she said. "My dad was very scholarly, but he was also a lot of fun. He had many, many funny stories."

Mrs. Lindsey agreed.

"He had a story for everything," she said laughing. "He used to say, 'Mrs. Lindsey, I know everything. And everything I don't know, you know.' We used to laugh about that all the time. He could tell some stories that kept you laughing all night long."

Throughout his life, he enjoyed reading and traveling. He and his wife took numerous trips to Paris, London, Rome, and to Lake Lugano, Switzerland.

He established a tradition of family road trips to Ann Arbor for University of Michigan football games, where he held season tickets for 41 years. There were also annual family vacations to Chicago and Montreal for jazz festivals, to Mackinac Island, Mich., and Washington, D.C.

Joseph Fenwick was born Dec. 19, 1931, in Washington, D.C., to Joseph Wyeth Fenwick, Jr., an ammunition assembler at the Washington Navy Yard and a pianist who studied music at Wilberforce University in Ohio, and to Theresa Johnson Fenwick, who died of meningitis when he was just 18 months old. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Theresa Johnson, and an aunt and uncle, William and Bertha Thompson, in the tight-knit Kingman Park neighborhood in northeast Washington, D.C.

Kingman Park was heavily influenced by the nearby presence of Howard University, Ms. Fenwick said.

"It was a very significant neighborhood that had civil rights and African-American history. It deeply shaped him," Ms. Fenwick said.

Getting a high-quality education was impressed upon Dr. Fenwick at a very early age, she said.

He attended Charles Young Elementary School and Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, both considered academically superior schools in Washington. They had a history of graduating African-Americans who went on to Ivy League colleges and to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Ms. Fenwick said.

"He was very proud of those schools and getting the kind of education that he did," his daughter said.

He received an undergraduate degree in science education with high honors from Miner Teachers College, now absorbed into the campus of Howard University.

After graduation, he taught eight years in Washington's public schools and was named a science teacher of the year.

On Dec. 20, 1960, he married Glenda Faye Ward, a public health nurse who graduated from Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing, which is also now part of Howard. They met when both were young professionals in Kingman Park. They raised five children and were married for nearly 60 years. She died March 25, 2020.

In 1967, he graduated with a doctor of dental surgery degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville. He then went on to complete an internship in oral maxillofacial surgery at Sydenham Hospital, the first municipal hospital in New York City to allow African-American doctors to admit their patients.

From New York, the family moved to Toledo, where Dr. Fenwick worked at the Toledo Dental Dispensary, providing dental care and oral health services for those with limited financial means. During this time, he was commuting to Ann Arbor to earn a master's degree in public health.

Ms. Fenwick said her father pursued dentistry because of his love of science.

"He started out as a science teacher and wanted to continue his love of the sciences by becoming a dentist," she said.

After earning the public health master's degree, Dr. Fenwick began a 27-year-career at the Toledo Health Department. He was initially appointed as the director of dental services, then became deputy health commissioner, and later, health commissioner.

He was Ohio's first African-American city health commissioner. His tenure was marked by increased federal grant programs and funding for maternal and child health, migrant farmer workers, HIV/AIDS, and other innovative initiatives and outreach, Ms. Fenwick said.

In 1993, Mayor-elect Carty Finkbeiner planned to fire Dr. Fenwick in a series of proposed layoffs. Dr. Fenwick sued, claimed he was appointed by the city's health board and not subject to removal by the mayor. Despite an Ohio Supreme Court ruling in July, 1995, stating it was the mayor's choice whether to fire him, Mayor Finkbeiner opted to retain Dr. Fenwick, awarded him a pay raise, and called him a "first-rate professional practitioner of public health delivery to the citizens," according to an Oct. 15, 1996, article in The Blade.

In his early 70s, Dr. Fenwick and a group of nine African-American men, including physicians in a variety of subspecialties, collaborated to fund and build the Drew-Hale Professional Building at the corner of Monroe Street and Lawrence Avenue. Drew-Hale served the Toledo community for decades and became a hub for quality medical, dental, pharmaceutical, and legal services, Ms. Fenwick said.

Throughout his career and life, he mentored many African-Americans, women, and others into careers in medicine, dentistry, nursing, and public health. He was acknowledged for these and other efforts to advance health care equity with awards from the American Public Health Association, American Dental Association, and National Association of Black Journalists.

"He was instrumental in starting a co-op program at the dental clinic in the health department for Whitney High School students that taught young girls how to be dental assistants," Mrs. Lindsey said of the vocational school for girls. "They were able to get salaries and learn the program as well. He was always thinking about the community. He turned nobody away. He will be sadly missed."

Ms. Fenwick said her father was "profoundly altruistic" and always lent a helping hand to whomever needed it.

"There were many times he helped people with very little financial means," Ms. Fenwick said. "I'd come home from school and see beans, squash, greens, and tomatoes on the porch. His patients brought these things as payment for his services."

Dr. Fenwick is survived by his daughter, Leslie; sons Russell, John, Jason, and Justin; seven grandchildren; and two great grandchildren.

The family will receive guests Saturday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at Newcomer Southwest Chapel, 4752 Heatherdowns Blvd., Toledo. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at Gesu Catholic Church. Burial will follow at Calvary Cemetery.

Donations can be made to the Dr. Joseph Wyeth Fenwick, III, Endowed Scholarship at Meharry Medical College.