Daniel Grover

If you want loyalty personified, Joe Maavich was the man. While living in Illinois, I was suddenly hired to teach in San Antonio three days before school started, and in immediate need of cash for moving expenses. At the time he was living with his mother during the week and going home to the little house he had in Standard, IL, on the weekends. In response to my request for a loan, he took me into his room and motioned me to keep quiet as he reached into a corner and pulled out a wad of cash. He peeled off $1000 without hesitation and handed it to me. That’s how he always was; his generosity with friends was extravagant. (Yes, I paid him back.) When my wife and I were engaged and had a reception in Rockford, Joe handed me another $300, this time as a gift. Whenever my wife and two sons were visiting my parents and would invite Joe over, he would bring my wife a big bouquet of flowers and sometimes had gifts for all of us.

It's no surprise then that he lavished gifts on his own parents. “Spoil them while you can,” he would say. He married late in life and it’s a safe bet that he was a generous husband and stepfather. My wife and I visited Rockford this last July for my own mother’s birthday. With four of my five siblings together for the first time in several years, I decided to make it a family-only visit, and leave friends until a next time. Of course, I now regret it.

Joe was a man of unusual hobbies and was delightfully eccentric. The house he bought in Standard was his showcase. He collected jukeboxes, movie posters, silver utensils, and recordings of radio shows from the 1920s and ‘30s. He had little 3-4” dolls on the window sashes of the house, a Three Stooges lamp, and bowling balls lining the driveway. He bought the house because he had taken a job in the area (Westclox?), but the factory closed and he worked for Sundstrand in Rockford after that. He also had a flare for melodramatic humor: I have a picture of him posing in an army helmet with “Viking” horns attached, broadsword in hand raised as to attack.

He had lots of stories to tell. One that comes to mind is how he woke up one night in his four-poster bed and in the dark mistook one of the posters for an intruder. He gave it a hard punch and broke it off.

He was probably the only person who would still call me “Gopher,” a nickname I picked up in elementary school.

His health was compromised several years ago by what he described as a “botched operation.” After that he would say that he was living on borrowed time. He also said that he lived for family and friends, the people that were important to him. The last time I saw him he walked slowly and had difficulty going up stairs. Yet he was always cheerful, always expressed appreciation for the life he had, especially, again, the family and friends. 

Sometimes I meet people with interests or habits that remind me of someone else, but not of Joe. Joe was one of kind.

Dale Kallenbach

...one of a kind.

He did the mash...

He did the monster mash. And rocked it.

One of my first memories of Joe was in Mr. Hoppe's music class first semester of seventh grade at Wilson Jr. High School. Mr. Hoppe wanted to broaden us by playing phonograph records to expose us to different than perhaps the ordinary music we were accustomed to. The particular selection Mr. Hoppe played was by Edgar Varese called Poem Electronic. An interesting piece for sure and Joe was inspired to give it a facial interpretation and which was really very fitting for the piece as I now recall.

Joe's large stature gave him space when perhaps there was little, a very focused man as I now remember him. Old-time radio characters in his head from full collections of radio programs. Ever the collector.

Joe was a giver, a sort of gentle giant (most of the time)

What fun to have had Joe as a friend.

Susan Kelley (OConnell)

I remember Joe from our time together at Auburn High School.  I think he may have had a crush on me as he would charge down the hall after me when I was changing classes and offer to carry my books.  He also would bring me bunches of dandelions as part of his wooing process.  I also remember how he reacted to a film strip we watched in Driver's Education sometime in our sophomore year.  I think it reminded him of the accident he was in as a child.  He had a good heart and was a loyal friend and classmate.  I am pleased to hear about his life, connections and past times.  He was a successful man and I am sorry he is now gone from this life.