Longtime employee of the Pittsburgh Press
JOSEPH ‘JOE’ LAMPING SR. | Sept. 25, 1921 - Jan. 29, 2020
Joseph “Joe” Lamping Sr. made family and friends laugh until the day he died. In his final years, he would open his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, turn to the obituaries and exclaim, “Isn’t that funny, how they all died in alphabetical order!”
Mr. Lamping died Jan. 29 in Robinson. He was 98.
With nearly 60 people in his immediate family, he lived by the motto W.A.F. — “We Are Family” — and had “a revolving door” to his house, always welcoming groups of family from across the country, said his daughter Barbara Garrett Boger, who lives in Las Vegas. As a father, he made time to build snowmen with his kids and planned vacations and themed family dinners.
He cared for neighbors, too. His daughter Lois Nicholson, also of Las Vegas, said her father would tell his children to make sure elderly neighbors had enough food in their cabinets before he went to the grocery store.
Mr. Lamping worked for The Pittsburgh Press for much of his life. In his words, he always had ink on his fingertips. Born in Bulger, Washington County, he was raised in Pittsburgh’s Spring Hill neighborhood and worked as a paperboy during his childhood. Years later, he worked as a stationary engineer at The Pittsburgh Press/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
At 9 years old, Mr. Lamping walked up and down hundreds of steps to deliver newspapers, wooden cart in tow. At the end of his route, he’d have one paper left over but would be able to remember which house he’d forgotten by thinking of where he had stopped to play ball. He would circle back to deliver the paper.
Mr. Lamping passed his work as a paperboy to his younger brother when he left to serve in the Army, first in Europe and then in the Pacific theater during World War II. After returning from the war, he worked in a meat processing plant, then The Pittsburgh Press.
Also upon his return, he married Edna Posch. They had met when he delivered fish to her uncle’s store. The pair exchanged letters throughout his time in the Army. Ms. Garrett Boger said they were as inseparable after 73 years of marriage as they were as newlyweds.
Every morning, Mr. Lamping would come down to the kitchen and say to his wife, “Good morning, Mrs. Lamping,” and she’d return, “Good morning, Mr. Lamping!”
They even have the same birthday — Sept. 25 — just one year apart, she born in 1922 and he in 1921.
When Mrs. Lamping was 90 years old, the pair attended the Montour High School prom. With a strict mother, Mrs. Lamping didn’t go to the prom as a teenager. The event made it onto YouTube.
Ms. Garrett Boger said Mr. Lamping was the type of man who would play with a baby in the cart in front of him in the grocery store checkout line and chat up the cashier.
At the newspaper offices, he’d try, slapstick-style, to get a ladder through revolving doors, making the lobby attendants laugh, until he finally went around to the back door, she said.
At the dinner table each evening, he told his family tales of his practical jokes, and as he got older, he’d tell his favorites again and again.
Mr. Lamping’s retirement kicked off another stage in his life. He learned to play the button box, a type of accordion, and performed around the world with the Slovenian Heritage Association.
His faith was important to him, too. Ms. Garrett Boger said he would often schedule lunch breaks around Mass. Most recently, Mr. Lamping was a member of St. Malachy Catholic Church in Kennedy.
In addition to his wife and daughters Ms. Nicholson and Ms. Garrett Boger, he is survived by daughters Rosemary Jageman, of Finleyville, and Kathy Dolak, of Erie, and a son, Edward Lamping, of Beaver, as well as his brother-in-law Frank Buchman, 17 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. He is predeceased by his son Joseph Jr. and his siblings Albert, William, Robert and Frank Lamping, Helen Buchman and Mildred Lieberth.
Visitation hours will be held at the McDermott Funeral Home in Kennedy on Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. The funeral Mass will take place at Archangel Gabriel Parish in St. Malachy Church in Kennedy on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.