Joseph Edwin Consolmagno
April 7, 1918 - June 11, 2018

Joseph Edwin Consolmagno died in Venice, Florida, on June 11, 2018. He had celebrated his 100th birthday on April 7.

Born in Medford, Massachusetts, he graduated from Tufts University in 1939, where he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and active in theatre. He joined the Army Air Corps in early 1941 and served as a navigator in B-17s in the 306th Bomb Group, among the first to reach England in 1942. Shot down in 1943, he served two years as a POW in Stalag Luft III. Upon his return to the US in 1945 he married Patricia Duffy; they celebrated 72 years together before her death in December 2017.

After the war he was a reporter and then a corporate press agent in New York, Toledo, and Detroit. In the 1950s he helped create the public relations department at Chrysler and was active in the Public Relations Society of America. He took early retirement in the 1970s and moved to Florida, working as a freelance speechwriter and humorous columnist. An avid sailor, he helped organize sailing clubs in Port Sanilac, Michigan and Englewood, Florida.

Joseph is survived by three children, Susan (Cianflone), Edwin, and Guy; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

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