Joe Fitzpatrick - Great Guy
December 17, 1923 ~ May 29, 2010
CARMEL VALLEY, CA – Joe Fitzpatrick, witty newsman best remembered for his “My Bag” column in the Monterey Herald, passed away “with a smile” Saturday, May 29, 2010. He died of sudden heart failure at the age of 86 while being prepared to return home after a brief stay in Community Hospital.
His care giver, Yvonne Jacobs, said that “he just smiled, laid back on his pillow and died” after she had shown Joe a picture of his dogs, Hussy and Higgins, on her i-phone and told him they were going home to see them. Joe had been incapacitated and in ill health for the past four years. But he retained his spirit – and a sense of humor – throughout.
Joe, of Irish/Scottish descent, was born in Salt Lake City on December 17, 1923 to John Francis (Joe called him “JF”) and Eleanor Crawford Fitzpatrick. His father had originally worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and ultimately became publisher of two newspapers, the Salt Lake Telegram and Salt Lake Tribune.
Joe went to Salt Lake City public schools and attended the University of Utah for two years where he had been president of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, before reluctantly conceding to his father’s wish that he “go away to school.” He attended Cornell University at Ithaca, NY for awhile, then, put off by the cold weather there, he persuaded “JF” to allow him to head for warmer climes. And, despite his father’s hope that he would become a lawyer, he followed his natural bent for writing and was graduated with a degree in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley in 1947.
He returned to Utah to work, first as a sports writer, then as a city desk reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune-Salt Lake Telegram where he would prove to his father that he had “the right stuff.”
There, he met Elayne Wareing who was also a city desk reporter, and their growing friendship and common passion for newspaper work led to marriage four years later on November 11, 1950 in Salt Lake’s Cathedral of the Madeleine.
With a growing family to support, he left the poorly-paying news business to join the Salt Lake advertising firm of Harris and Montague, later forming an agency of his own in partnership with a popular TV weatherman, Bob Welty. But he missed newspaper work and, feeling “like a fish out of water”, he became increasingly depressed. This led to problems in his marriage and to a divorce in 1966 after which he jumped at an opportunity to move to the Monterey Peninsula and work for the Monterey Herald when it was owned by the now-fabled “Colonel Griffin.”
To explain his new-found joy in returning to the work he loved, he framed a quote from Moliere and gave it to his also-writing ex-wife. It read:
Writing is like prostitution.
First you do it for the love of it,
Then you do it for a few friends,
And finally you do it for money.
In 1974, Elayne, (who remained his “best buddy” until the day he died) and his then-grown children, John and Shawnie, came to the Monterey Peninsula and began careers of their own. The family stayed together.
Joe was so good at what he did that he not only won the Associated Press’s Best Feature Story of the Year in 1968 but he began an insightful, witty, “no holds barred” column called “My Bag” that earned him the title of “Herb Caen of the Monterey Peninsula.” (Caen was a famous San Francisco Chronicle columnist who wrote about “Baghdad by-the-Bay.”) When Joe dubbed himself “the poor man’s Herb Caen,” Caen smilingly rebutted in one of his columns that he was “the poor man’s Joe Fitzpatrick.”
Joe liked to explore – and write about – restaurants. His opinions were so highly regarded that his words could “make or break.” He was a good bowler and golfer, but he stopped playing these games when he came to this golf capital. He’d been on the Salt Lake Country Club golf team and could have been a pro there. But he realized he’d been playing the game mostly to please his father. So when he left Utah (becoming his “own man” as it were), he never took up a golf club again. Instead he played tennis, fished a little, followed popular sports, was active in politics, and even became known among local Italians as “the commissioner of Bocci Ball.”
Later, when he built a house on Country Club Drive in Carmel Valley, he became an avid gardener, became a “regular” at “Yogurt Heaven” in The Crossroads and could be seen happily driving around the Peninsula in a little yellow Mercedes Benz convertible sporting a facetious license plate that read: “Wee Benz, but we don’t break!”
He loved Christmas. His grandchildren referred to him as “Santa” because of his unusual gifts and amazing generosity. They also reveled in his sense of humor, his intelligence, his kindness, not to mention his “dashing-but-tasteful” wardrobe. As his daughter put it, “He was a very classy guy!”
Above all, he loved dogs. He was never without one. He even had a sign above the desk in his study: “The more I learn about people, the more I love dogs.”
Joe was offered other writing jobs, including a job at the Los Angeles Times (a newspaper he respected) and the National Enquirer (this made him chuckle). But he turned down other “offers” because of his love for this Peninsula, not to mention love for his family.
As for that family, in addition to his dogs, Hussy and Higgins, Joe is survived by a son, John Wareing Fitzpatrick, Carmel Valley; a daughter, Shawnie Ann Tollner of Carmel; and four grandchildren, Dylan James Fitzpatrick (Joe lived long enough to hear of his graduation just this month from the University of Arizona in Tucson); Katie Claire Fitzpatrick, a senior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Tatum Ann Tollner, Carmel thespian and student at Monterey Peninsula College; and Christopher Fitzpatrick Tollner, senior at Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach. Joe’s former wife, Elayne Wareing Fitzpatrick (known as “Elayne the Farmer” in his column) and best buddy through the years, is still around in Carmel Valley. Joe outlived three siblings, James and Tom Fitzpatrick and Francis Fitzpatrick Sullivan.
A celebration of Joe’s life was held Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. at Montrio Bistro, 414 Calle Principal in Monterey (it was a nice party). In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that Joe’s friends make a donation to Peace of Mind Dog Rescue in Pacific Grove ~ www.peaceofminddogrescue.org or (831-718-9122).
