Joe Fitzgerald belonged to Boston
Former Herald columnist passes away at 79
Joe Fitzgerald pounded out his columns with such passion you could hear him strike the keys from across the newsroom.
His daughter said she’d fall asleep as a kid to that same rhythmic clacking coming from the manual typewriter downstairs her dad cherished. That was Joe. Ink ran through his veins. Loyalty. Compassion. Commitment also flowed equally.
“He loved connecting with the people he wrote about. He never forgot a name or someone’s story and it was always so important to him to write with respect and integrity,” Kate Kelley, Joe’s daughter, told the Herald.
She called to break the sad news that her dad had passed away peacefully Thursday at age 79 surrounded by his family, including his boys Mike and Tim, after suffering a stroke.
Joe grew up in West Roxbury and raised his family in Norwood, but he belonged to Boston.
He cared deeply about everyone he met. He was passionate, OK fiery at times, but you have to be in this business. No one gives up their secrets easily. Joe had the gift of pulling them out.
He’d fly by the City Desk to announce his column was ready and to tell us what other stories had to make it into the next day’s print edition. He was always right.
Joe understood how precious the feel of a newspaper can be in your hands — especially if your byline was on one of the pages. He’d lose sleep if a typo tarnished his prose, even if we caught it.
He was also the master of the “appreciation.” If a “friend of the Herald,” as Joe would say, died we had to write a heartfelt piece. Joe would volunteer or he’d insist we pen one.
It must also be said that Joe was never the same after his beloved wife, Carol, died in October of 2012. They first met in Vermont while on a date squirrel hunting. True story! He had to marry her after that first outing, he’d say with a laugh.
Joe was also a deeply religious man. His faith infused his columns. God bless him for that.
There’s an unwritten rule in journalism that you push aside the daily grind to honor a fallen colleague. You put down on paper what that person embodied.
Joe Fitz taught us that the Boston Herald can never die. It’s our job to pound the keys, report the truth, and honor the readers who demand our best every day.
A reader recently wrote to point out that using the term “passed away” for someone who died wasn’t proper Associated Press style. I’d agree, to a point.
Joe Fitz has passed away, but what he left behind lives on in all of us.
Joe, we appreciate every word you wrote.
Joe’s wake will be Thursday from 4-8 p.m. at Kraw-Kornack Funeral Home in Norwood with a funeral on Friday at 10 a.m. at The United Church of Norwood.