Joseph Walter Bloomsburg died Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018, at age 90, in Rathdrum, Idaho.
Joe was born Aug. 15, 1927, in Salmon, Idaho, to Walter and Helen Bloomsburg. He had two older sisters, Elizabeth "Betty" Bloomsburg Butler McCleary and Barbara "Barbie" Bloomsburg Kriley, as well as a younger brother, George Bloomsburg.
The family had a 10-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Salmon, and Walter sold the produce from a truck that he drove on local routes. Joe and his siblings worked in the garden, weeding the quarter-mile-long garden rows, and Joe split the wood for the kitchen stove from age 6. Hard work of any kind suited Joe, but it was the local cowboys and Salmon-area ranchers who made him want to raise cattle.
Though Joe dreamed of the rough life in a saddle, his mother, Helen, made sure Joe and his siblings were raised right. They weren't allowed to drink from the irrigation ditches, and they had to wear shoes all day on Sundays. And his father, Walter, made sure the family played, quitting work on summer evenings for a swim in the family swimming hole and teaching the kids tennis on a homemade tennis court.
Joe got his start in cattle when the family moved to a homestead on Lake Coeur d'Alene in 1942. The ranch was near Worley, Idaho, where Joe and George went to school. Joe put his heart and his back into building the ranch with his family. He skipped school at least once a week for an extra day of work during his first year at Worley. Ranching was a big change from their vegetable farm, and it took everything the family had to make a go of it. But they did.
Despite his truancy, Joe excelled at school, especially math. He tutored peers in advanced algebra during his senior year and found he enjoyed it. After graduation, Joe served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1947. He came back to the ranch as soon as he could.
Walter Bloomsburg died in 1948, leaving Joe to work the ranch, which consumed his life until a blind date with Beverly Kyburz in 1950. Beverly knew that night that she would marry Joe. He figured it out soon after, and the pattern for the couple's 65 years together was set.
During their wedding, Joe's love for Bev stole his voice when he went to say, "I do." Then he embarrassed his mother by kissing Bev for too long when the preacher gave the cue.
They started their family at the ranch. Vicki was born Dec. 24, 1952. Walter came next, then Dorrie and Ruth. But the ranch was not growing as well as their family. Joe tried to move into raising pigs to add more income, but after several pigs died, farming became unviable to support the growing family. Years later, they found out a wood-sealing product used on the barn floors had poisoned the pigs.
They kept the ranch, but Joe went back to university on the GI Bill. He got his bachelor's degree from the University of Idaho, and the family moved to Lewiston in 1959. Joe became a math and earth science teacher at the junior high schools in the Lewiston School District. Pete and Jeff were born. Joe worked on his master's degree during the summers and became a professor at Lewis-Clark State College in 1965. Anne and Gwen were born.
The family spent summers at the ranch, practicing the hard work ethic Joe had enjoyed growing up. Joe rarely raised his voice at his kids, never cursed at them, but continued raising cattle so that he had something to cuss at. Throughout his career at LCSC, he liked to remind his colleagues that the only reason he became a professor was because he had failed as swineherd. That may have been true, but his wisdom and wit touched the lives of many students, and his work ethic and value of education in and beyond the classroom hugely influenced his children.
His practical way of thinking also was the cause of disagreements between Joe and college administration, the Lewiston City Council and myriad bureaucracies. He might not have won all those battles, but he gave as good as he got and outlived most of his adversaries. Along with practicality, Joe's resourcefulness and stubbornness, and his cowboy hat, were legendary. Never before and probably never again will any man have a relationship with machinery and vehicles like Joe Bloomsburg. His ability to stretch the life of a vehicle without many of the parts most people would believe essential was truly superhuman. From paddling with a shovel (displaces more water than an oar) to taking on and completing alone tasks that would have required six people, Joe provided millions of great stories for the people who loved him. And a good story and good storytelling were just about his favorite things. He wrote several books to chronicle some of his best ones.
Joe and Bev moved back to the ranch full time in 1991 when he retired from teaching. Although he spent his life working there, the ranch was not his life's work. He would be the first to tell you that the most important thing he had done in his life was raise his family. His leather-tough, "nearly fireproof" hands would belie his breaking voice any time he talked about how much his family meant to him - especially Bev.
Joe lost Bev last spring, but he has found her again. Now it's up to God to hold the ladder while Joe balances on the "This Is Not A Step" step in his cowboy boots. After a long, good life of learning and teaching, laughing and visiting, working and playing, and making very unwise decisions about small and heavy equipment safety, this will be one job that Joe has all the tools he needs with him.
He was preceded in death by his parents, sister Betty, brother George, nephew Carl and Beverly. He is survived by, revered by, and will be missed by eight children and their spouses, 17 grandchildren and their spouses, five great-grandsons, three nieces and a nephew and their families, and decades of friends. A service will be held in Worley in August.
