Pioneer for the intellectually disabled
JOSEPH R. ‘JOEY’ DUVA | Jan, 11, 1940 – March 22, 2024
The status quo was a place where Joseph “Joey” Duva refused to reside.
As a pioneer for the rights of the intellectually disabled like himself, Mr. Duva accomplished some remarkable feats, including cofounding the first community-based group home in the state.
But he didn’t do it alone. His late mother, Connie Walker, blazed a trail alongside Mr. Duva for most of his life, one that came to an end March 22 as a result of heart failure. Mr. Duva, of Squirrel Hill, was 84.
Born two-and-a-half months premature and weighing just 2 pounds, Mr. Duva spent the first three months of his life on a ventilator, being fed his mother’s breast milk.
Despite those early challenges, Mr. Duva thrived.
While he was growing up in Penn Hills, a special education teacher inspired him to find his talents in life and to use his abilities to the fullest.
The teacher, Anna May Gallagher, was “a wonderful woman who refused to let any of us leave her class until we learned something,” Mr. Duva said in a 1966 story in The Pittsburgh Press. “It makes a big difference to have someone take such an interest in you.”
As a boy he delivered newspapers, building a route from 40 customers to 120, and took on other jobs. And, Mr. Duva knew how to have fun.
“He loved bowling and dancing,” said a cousin, Rosemary Martinelli.
“Growing up, he was just my cousin and I never saw him as being any different. I remember we’d spend all day at my Aunt Connie’s house — we all lived close to each other in Penn Hills. Joey and I did so many fun things together. We’d put records on the phonograph and use hairbrushes as microphones and just dance and lip sync around the living room. He was always so much fun.”
In 1960, Mr. Duva was among the first to work at the Opportunity Center in Wilkinsburg, run by the Allegheny County chapter of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children, or PARC.
The center left much to be desired, but his mother was not discouraged.
“Oh, what a mess,” Mrs. Walker recalled in The Progress, a Penn Hills newspaper, in 1976. “It had one room with paint that was peeling and cracked. We sold a lot of rummage to keep it going.”
Members of the center, like Mr. Duva, started out making ceramics that were sold to raise funds. Through endless bazaars and bake sales and even occasionally dumpster diving for items to sell, the center expanded over the years.
Eventually, the center signed contracts with local industries for everything from catering services to artwork and miscellaneous types of widgets.
But even then, Mr. Duva was looking for more in life — an opportunity “in the outside world,” as he called it.
“What I want most is a full-time job where I can be responsible for myself,” he said.
It wasn’t long before the young man found more fulfilling experiences.
“Once, I was the maintenance man for a laundromat, keeping it clean and seeing that the machines were in working order,” Mr. Duva said in the 1966 Press story.
One of his primary talents was art, so much so that his reproduction of Renoir’s “Young Girl in Pink” was chosen as the award-winning design for the local PARC chapter’s annual Christmas card.
Over the years, Mr. Duva designed more Christmas cards to help support the chapter’s work and by 1970, he and his mother became co-founders of Allegheny East Mental Health/Mental Retardation Center in the eastern suburbs.
Mrs. Walker also helped to establish a range of fun activities, like a bowling league and dances for members of the disabled community.
“She helped to pave the way for him and so many others,” his cousin said. “He was able to have a life on his own with jobs, social and recreational opportunities, thanks to her.”
But, the overriding question and concern of parents of the intellectually disabled was always the same: what would happen when they died?
Parents like Mrs. Walker were determined that their children wouldn’t be institutionalized like so many other disabled people. Though they are now commonplace, group homes for the disabled weren’t a thing in the 1970s.
“There was no way that Aunt Connie was going to have that happen to Joey or anyone else if she could help it,” his cousin said.
In 1971, after the state Department of Welfare rejected a request for funding the first group home in Pennsylvania, Mr. Duva traveled with his mother to Harrisburg to confront Gov. Milton Shapp about it.
The trip was a success and funding secured for the first community-based residential center, giving the disabled a chance at an independent, safe life. It was freedom.
“Joey and my aunt worked together to advocate for all intellectually disabled individuals, not just himself,” his cousin said. “He was part of a movement that changed things for everybody.”
When he was 36, Mr. Duva moved into one of the first supervised apartments for the mentally disabled.
After his mother’s death in 2003, Mr. Duva continued to support himself and lead a full life, with a girlfriend, his cousin said.
“She and Joey became a couple and remained a couple until she passed away in 2010,” she said. “They shared an apartment after Joey moved out of supervised living. She was a terrific cook, with pastries that you would not believe, including homemade cannolis that they made together. I think they even had a dog. They entertained friends, too, because Frances loved to cook and keep house.”
Her wish — and his mother’s as well — was that Mr. Duva should be recognized for his accomplishments, not his limitations.
“He was able to do things that people thought he couldn’t,” she said. “He was a trailblazer for others with disabilities.”
Mr. Duva is survived by his brothers Vincent Duva, of Middlesex, and Anthony Falvo, of Harrison.
His funeral was Saturday.