Marvin Katz, whose 40-year journalism career
before his 1998 retirement included the BJ, passed away Friday, November 19.
Marv’s wife, Joyce, passed away seven months
ago on April 20, 2021.
Their daughter, Liza Katz Pagel, passed away
September 21, 2011 in Fort Lewis, Washington after enduring years of chemo to
battle her cancer.
Marv went from Elyria High School to Kent
State to his remarkable career and retirement in Portland, Oregon, where he
watched Portland sports teams like the NBA Trailblazers, the Timbers and the
Thorns.
I guess Portland must have a rule that team
nicknames have to start with a T.
Marv and Joyce’s other daughter, Susie, a
family practice physician in Portland, posted the news. Susie was an intern at
the BJ during her Kent State years.
Three
years after 40 years of journalism, public relations
and freelance writing and PR consulting, Marv and Joyce moved from Rockville, Maryland, where they lived for 24 years, to a North Carolina
mountainside home five miles north of Hendersonville and 22 miles from Asheville.
That’s
where Marv and Joyce had their own version of the three bears and Goldilocks
(in their case, four bears). I’ll let Marv tell the story:
“Joyce and I spotted what
appeared to be four bears, probably a mother and three cubs, in trees adjacent
to our front yard about 9:30 in the evening. The bears had removed two
birdfeeders after bending the
shepherd's crooks holding the feeders. I'd forgotten to take in the feeders
before we left for dinner.
“When I went into the yard to get the
feeders, I heard hissing and thrashing sounds from the trees on the
right side of our lot near the road. I immediately retreated to the garage and
closed the door. There was more hissing and thrashing when I walked out on the
front porch.
“As Joyce and I watched from our bedroom window, we were able to make out
three forms come down one tree trunk and a fourth come down a second
tree. All headed into the woods. Apparently the bears had been working
over the feeders and retreated to the trees when our car approached the
house.
I'm not putting out our bird feeders for a while.”
Eventually,
they moved to Oregon to be near daughter Susie.
Marv never suffered fools gladly, particularly former President
Donald Trump. His Facebook page is filled with deserved shots at Trump.
My favorite:
“Super lyin’ fragile racist whiny braggadocious.”
Close second:
“Here’s to Donald Trump.
“May your Presidency be short and your prison term long.”
Marvin often tipped off Harry Liggett, founder of this BJ
Alums blog, and me, who Harry trained for a year as his successor when he knew
he was dying, to news he thought would be worth using in the BJ Alums blog. A
slew of BJ articles were Marv’s doing, often Harry or me just rerunning the
full article that Marv found.
Marv also joined a demand for the return of excellence to
Knight-Ridder and named candidates for the KR board of directors.
Marv was at the
Lorain Journal in 1958-60, in the
Elyria bureau with Andy Cota.
In 2018 Marv
listed his BJ experience as “reporter” from 1960-1966 and his residence as
Troutdale, Oregon, which is 16 miles east or Portland and only a few miles
south of the Columbia River.
There will be a
graveside service for Marv at 11 a.m. Monday, November 29 at River View Cemetery
in Portland.
Marv met a young teacher named Joyce Moseley when she was
chaperoning a school dance at Green High School. Marv was covering the dance
for the BJ.
He saw her and talked with her got her phone number from the
superintendent of schools if he could have her number.
Joyce, an Akron David Lipscomb Christian College graduate,
and Marv fell in love.
Marvin’s obituary, which
despite my editing skills I cannot improve upon so I’ll just post all of it:
MEMORIAL
SERVICE INFORMATION
The
service for Marv will be held graveside on Monday, 11/29, at 11:00 AM. It will
occur at River View Cemetery located at 300 S Taylor's Ferry Road /
Portland OR 97219.
================================
Marv and Joyce met at a
school dance at Green High School in Northeastern Ohio. Joyce Moseley was a
young teacher, chaperoning the dance. Marv was a reporter, covering the event
for the Akron Beacon Journal. He saw her and talked with her and, before
leaving, asked the superintendent of schools if he could have her number. I
guess that’s how things went back then. Anyhow, Marv, a nice Jewish boy from
Elyria (Ohio), and Joyce, a prim and proper graduate of David Lipscomb
Christian College from Akron, met and fell in love. Then they broke up over
children and religion, then got back together and were married. Whew!
Their early life together included moves from
Akron to Pittsburgh to Columbus to Rockville, Maryland as Joyce followed Marvin
as new job opportunities came his way. It wasn’t always easy, particularly as
they moved to Maryland, far from Joyce’s mother and sister in Akron. Their
eldest child, Lisa Anne, was born in Akron in 1965. Susanne Lesley arrived in
Pittsburgh in 1971. They were dedicated, loving, and strict parents.
Joyce volunteered in the classroom and with Girl
Scouts and returned to teaching when they moved to Maryland. Susie has many
fond memories of helping Joyce get her classroom decorated and set up each
year. Joyce made birthdays and holidays special for her own children and the
neighbor kids as well. She passed a love for baking to her girls. Joyce’s
Christmas cookie plates were a much anticipated holiday treat. While she was
known as a sweet, kind, and patient woman, she was a stickler about academics,
manners, chores, and cleaning one’s plate. She wielded a wooden spoon like a
ninja when she felt her kids needed discipline.
Marv was the primary breadwinner and spent
weekdays at work. For a couple of years, he worked in Akron and stayed at the
(“swanky” by Susie’s four-year-old standards) Knights’ Inn during the week,
returning home to Columbus for weekends. Marv taught the girls to swim, ride
bikes, roller skate, and drive. He also taught them to be frugal and to take
care of their things. From turning off the water in the shower while we washed up
or using no more toilet paper than was absolutely necessary to do the job, he
challenged them. He taught them to wash the cars, clean the windows, replace
washers and think carefully before deciding on a purchase. He was always in
attendance at Susie’s soccer games, developing a talent for being able to walk
the sideline while simultaneously listening to Redskins and Steelers games on
his Walkman and screaming at the ref for bad calls.
They embraced the mates that Susie and Lisa
chose and welcomed them as the sons they never had. For his part, Ralph can say
he always felt an abiding deep affection from them. In their adult life, they
became friends of Bill W. They made many dear friends in Maryland and then
North Carolina, where they lived for ten years after retiring. After enduring
the difficult and cruel hardship of losing their daughter Lisa to cancer in
2011, they moved to Portland to be closer to Susie and her family.
As strict as they were with their own children,
they were equally indulgent with their grandchildren, Alex and Adriana. They
epitomized the phrase: “Who needs Santa? I’ve got grandparents.” They thrilled
in spending time with their grandkids, whether they were baking, reading, or
watching The Polar Express for the millionth time (Grandma) or tracking and
reporting Santa’s progress (Grandpa) on Christmas Eve. Once they moved to
Oregon, they were regulars in attendance at both kids’ taekwondo belt tests,
Adriana’s CYO basketball games, and soccer games. Grandma had zero tolerance
for referees who were not on the side of Adriana’s teams. They loved hosting
the kids for sleepovers in Troutdale, usually including pie shakes at Shari’s
in the evening. They were so proud of the kids for their academic achievements,
Adriana’s singing, and both kids’ theatrical performances. They bragged about
Alex and Adriana constantly.
In the final years of their lives, each endured
significant physical hardship. Joyce began dialysis in 2016 and endured these
treatment sessions and all the associated complications for several years. In
March 2021 Joyce had a stroke that left her with progressively worsening
left-sided weakness and pain. Ultimately, Joyce died at their home in the
Russellville Park Retirement Community on April 20, 2021 after making a difficult
decision to stop dialysis five days earlier. Her greatest sorrow in this
decision was leaving Dad, Alex and Adriana behind. Her death came mercifully
quickly and we were able to share love, memories and laughter until just before
her last breath.
Marv struggled without his Joyce. He often
reflected on how much he missed her, “the love of my life” to Susie and his
caregivers. He had struggled with dementia for several years and with loss of
mobility in the years before Joyce’s death. His decline seemed to accelerate
after the loss of his lifelong partner. He was content to stay in his apartment
and watch TV, but could occasionally be drawn out to visit the cemetery. On
Sunday, November 14, he developed aspiration pneumonia while in a
rehabilitation clinic and progressed to respiratory failure over a matter of
hours. He was admitted to Providence Portland Medical Center for comfort care
and received excellent care from the team on the oncology floor until his death
five days later.
Joyce and Marv were many things over the course
of their rich lives. But perhaps most importantly, they were generous,
good-hearted, and fair. They treated everyone from the grocery store clerk to
the Governor of Ohio with equal dignity and respect. We miss them dearly.
We want to express special appreciation for the
caregivers who invested so much of their time, energy, and love in helping Marv
and Joyce feel comfortable in their final years, especially Jeanette, Dawn,
Laura, Lavenita, Polly, Rebecca, Al, and Angela.
We invite you to share a brief remembrance, story, anecdote, or thought
of your own below in the section labeled Leave
a Tribute. If you have a lengthier
story to share, feel free to leave it in the section labeled Stories.
Also, please take some time to look at some of
the photos in the Gallery section.
If you have any of your own to share, please feel free to upload them onto the
site.
Instead of flowers, we ask that people consider making memorial donations
to the scholarship fund set up in honor of my sister, Lisa, who passed away in
2011. You can send a donation by mail to:
The Lisa Katz Pagel Scholarship Fund at the Kent
State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, PO Box 5190,
Kent, OH 44242
If you'd like to make a donation online, a link
is provided below. If you are donating online be sure to select the
option 'I would
like to make my own designation' and designate the 'Lisa Katz Pagel Scholarship
Fund' as the recipient. https://www.kent.edu/philanthropy/ways-give
Marvin Katz
This is Marv and Joyce's daughter, Susie,
posting. Joyce died on April 20, 2021 and Marv died on November 19, 2021. I'm
sorry to be sharing such crummy news via Facebook. Please check out our
ForeverMissed site below. It contains information about Dad's memorial service.
https://www.forevermissed.com/joyceandmarv-katz/about
Susie
is a family-practice physician in Portland, Ore.,
and the mother of our two grandchildren.
Worked at Retired
Studied at Kent State University
Went to Elyria High School
Lives in Portland, Oregon
Marv
never suffered fools gladly, particularly former President Donald Trump. His
Facebook page is filled with deserved shots at Trump.
My
favorite:
“Super
lyin’ fragile racist whiny braggadocious.”
Close
second:
“Here’s
to Donald Trump.
“My
your Presidency be short and your prison term long.”
Marv
popped Trump with Mary Poppins!
Marv
was an avid follower of the Portland Thorns and Portland Timbers and the
Portland Trailblazers sports teams.
At
Ohio State basketball game in 2015:
Ohio
State-Arizona about to tip off. First time I I've rooted for the Buckeyes since
Vic Janowicz was their Heisman-winning quarterback (look him up). You OK with
that, Hank and Betty Janowicz?
Marvin
Katz, whose 40-year career included the BJ, was
at the Lorain paper in 1958-60, in the
Elyria bureau with Andy Cota. Marv retired in 1998.
Tom Moore crossed paths with Marv
during that time. Tom's 41-year
newspaper career included the Zanesville News, Columbus Citizen and Columbus
Citizen Journal. All went belly-up.
Marvin often tipped me off to news he thought would be
worth using in the BJ Alums blog. A slew of BJ articles were Marv’s doing,
often just relying the full article that Marv found.
Marv also joined a demand for the return of excellence to
Knight-Ridder and named candidates for the KR board of directors.
Friday, November 18, 2005
KR alumni take stand for excellence
Knight Ridder Alumni, in Open
Letter, Take Stand for 'Excellent
Journalism,' Say They Will Name Candidates for Board
In an extraordinary "Open Letter from Knight Ridder Alumni"
circulated to the media this morning, a long list of journalists declared,
"We have watched mostly in silent dismay as short-term profit demands have
diminished long-term capacity of newsrooms in Knight Ridder and other public
media companies. We are silent no more. We will support and counsel only
corporate leadership that restores to Knight Ridder newspapers the resources to
do excellent journalism. We are prepared collectively to nominate candidates
for the Knight Ridder board. We wish to reassert John Knight's creed."
The letter was mailed to the media by Jim Naughton, former editor at The
Philadelphia Inquirer and former president of The Poynter Institute for Media
Studies.
Naughton told E&P today he had organized the effort just this week and they
hoped to nominate a "slate" of candidates for the Knight Ridder board
that would include journalists at the next annual meeting. The company is
currently the focus of an investor-led move to pressure a sale or break-up of
the company, or other moves.
The blog is proud to list some familiar faces who were among the signers,
including Dale Allen, Doug Clifton, David Cooper, Albert Fitzpatrick, Glenn
Guzzo, Marvin Katz, Jan Leach, David Meeker, Phillip Meyer, Gene Roberts,
Timothy D. Smith, William Vance, Debbie VanTassel and Abe Zaidan.
A 2018 update of BJ retirees had this information:
KATZ,
Marvin. 1960-1966, reporter. Now in Troutdale, Ore., retired. marvkatz@frontier.com
Marvin Katz
This is Marv and Joyce's daughter, Susie,
posting. Joyce died on April 20, 2021 and Marv died on November 19, 2021. I'm
sorry to be sharing such crummy news via Facebook. Please check out our
ForeverMissed site below. It contains information about Dad's memorial service.
https://www.forevermissed.com/joyceandmarv-katz/about
Susie is a family-practice physician in
Portland, Ore., and the mother of our two grandchildren.
Marvin’s
obituary, which despite my editing skills I cannot improve upon so I’ll just
post all of it:
MEMORIAL
SERVICE INFORMATION
The
service for Marv will be held graveside on Monday, 11/29, at 11:00 AM. It will
occur at River View Cemetery located at 300 S Taylor's Ferry Road /
Portland OR 97219.
================================
Marv and Joyce met at a
school dance at Green High School in Northeastern Ohio. Joyce Moseley was a
young teacher, chaperoning the dance. Marv was a reporter, covering the event
for the Akron Beacon Journal. He saw her and talked with her and, before
leaving, asked the superintendent of schools if he could have her number. I
guess that’s how things went back then. Anyhow, Marv, a nice Jewish boy from
Elyria (Ohio), and Joyce, a prim and proper graduate of David Lipscomb
Christian College from Akron, met and fell in love. Then they broke up over
children and religion, then got back together and were married. Whew!
Their early life together included moves from
Akron to Pittsburgh to Columbus to Rockville, Maryland as Joyce followed Marvin
as new job opportunities came his way. It wasn’t always easy, particularly as
they moved to Maryland, far from Joyce’s mother and sister in Akron. Their
eldest child, Lisa Anne, was born in Akron in 1965. Susanne Lesley arrived in
Pittsburgh in 1971. They were dedicated, loving, and strict parents.
Joyce volunteered in the classroom and with Girl
Scouts and returned to teaching when they moved to Maryland. Susie has many
fond memories of helping Joyce get her classroom decorated and set up each
year. Joyce made birthdays and holidays special for her own children and the
neighbor kids as well. She passed a love for baking to her girls. Joyce’s
Christmas cookie plates were a much anticipated holiday treat. While she was
known as a sweet, kind, and patient woman, she was a stickler about academics,
manners, chores, and cleaning one’s plate. She wielded a wooden spoon like a
ninja when she felt her kids needed discipline.
Marv was the primary breadwinner and spent
weekdays at work. For a couple of years, he worked in Akron and stayed at the
(“swanky” by Susie’s four-year-old standards) Knights’ Inn during the week,
returning home to Columbus for weekends. Marv taught the girls to swim, ride
bikes, roller skate, and drive. He also taught them to be frugal and to take
care of their things. From turning off the water in the shower while we washed
up or using no more toilet paper than was absolutely necessary to do the job,
he challenged them. He taught them to wash the cars, clean the windows, replace
washers and think carefully before deciding on a purchase. He was always in
attendance at Susie’s soccer games, developing a talent for being able to walk
the sideline while simultaneously listening to Redskins and Steelers games on
his Walkman and screaming at the ref for bad calls.
They embraced the mates that Susie and Lisa
chose and welcomed them as the sons they never had. For his part, Ralph can say
he always felt an abiding deep affection from them. In their adult life, they
became friends of Bill W. They made many dear friends in Maryland and then
North Carolina, where they lived for ten years after retiring. After enduring
the difficult and cruel hardship of losing their daughter Lisa to cancer in
2011, they moved to Portland to be closer to Susie and her family.
As strict as they were with their own children,
they were equally indulgent with their grandchildren, Alex and Adriana. They
epitomized the phrase: “Who needs Santa? I’ve got grandparents.” They thrilled
in spending time with their grandkids, whether they were baking, reading, or
watching The Polar Express for the millionth time (Grandma) or tracking and
reporting Santa’s progress (Grandpa) on Christmas Eve. Once they moved to
Oregon, they were regulars in attendance at both kids’ taekwondo belt tests,
Adriana’s CYO basketball games, and soccer games. Grandma had zero tolerance
for referees who were not on the side of Adriana’s teams. They loved hosting
the kids for sleepovers in Troutdale, usually including pie shakes at Shari’s
in the evening. They were so proud of the kids for their academic achievements,
Adriana’s singing, and both kids’ theatrical performances. They bragged about
Alex and Adriana constantly.
In the final years of their lives, each endured
significant physical hardship. Joyce began dialysis in 2016 and endured these
treatment sessions and all the associated complications for several years. In
March 2021 Joyce had a stroke that left her with progressively worsening
left-sided weakness and pain. Ultimately, Joyce died at their home in the
Russellville Park Retirement Community on April 20, 2021 after making a
difficult decision to stop dialysis five days earlier. Her greatest sorrow in
this decision was leaving Dad, Alex and Adriana behind. Her death came
mercifully quickly and we were able to share love, memories and laughter until
just before her last breath.
Marv struggled without his Joyce. He often
reflected on how much he missed her, “the love of my life” to Susie and his
caregivers. He had struggled with dementia for several years and with loss of
mobility in the years before Joyce’s death. His decline seemed to accelerate
after the loss of his lifelong partner. He was content to stay in his apartment
and watch TV, but could occasionally be drawn out to visit the cemetery. On
Sunday, November 14, he developed aspiration pneumonia while in a
rehabilitation clinic and progressed to respiratory failure over a matter of
hours. He was admitted to Providence Portland Medical Center for comfort care
and received excellent care from the team on the oncology floor until his death
five days later.
Joyce and Marv were many things over the course
of their rich lives. But perhaps most importantly, they were generous,
good-hearted, and fair. They treated everyone from the grocery store clerk to
the Governor of Ohio with equal dignity and respect. We miss them dearly.
We want to express special appreciation for the
caregivers who invested so much of their time, energy, and love in helping Marv
and Joyce feel comfortable in their final years, especially Jeanette, Dawn,
Laura, Lavenita, Polly, Rebecca, Al, and Angela.
We invite you to share a brief remembrance, story, anecdote, or thought
of your own below in the section labeled Leave
a Tribute. If you have a lengthier
story to share, feel free to leave it in the section labeled Stories.
Also, please take some time to look at some of
the photos in the Gallery section.
If you have any of your own to share, please feel free to upload them onto the
site.
Instead of flowers, we ask that people consider making memorial donations
to the scholarship fund set up in honor of my sister, Lisa, who passed away in
2011. You can send a donation by mail to:
The Lisa Katz Pagel Scholarship Fund at the Kent
State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, PO Box 5190,
Kent, OH 44242
If you'd like to make a donation online, a link
is provided below. If you are donating online be sure to select the
option 'I would
like to make my own designation' and designate the 'Lisa Katz Pagel Scholarship
Fund' as the recipient. https://www.kent.edu/philanthropy/ways-give
