Joseph Graziano

Joseph Graziano passed peacefully at home on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.

Joseph was born in Garfield where he lived with his mother Mary, his father Joseph Sr and younger brother John. As a boy, his mother gave him the nickname Sonny. In childhood he enjoyed passing time at his uncle’s grocery store.  One of his favorite companions as a boy was a dog named Rex. Each school day, Mary would open the door at 3 and Rex would run toward the school. Joe would find the dog waiting for him and the two would walk the remainder of the way home together side by side. As a teenager, Joe enjoyed hanging out at Barcelona's with a lifelong friend Johnny. He also developed a love of cars. Later in life he would enjoy driving Lincolns and Cadillacs, but the first car he drove was a 1949 Kaiser Frazer. It belonged to a friend who taught him to drive. When it was time for Joe to take his driver’s test, he decided to borrow the Kaiser Frazer instead of taking his father’s car because he had the most experience driving that car. His planning paid off and he passed the driving test on his first try.

After school he served in the Army and was sent to Korea. During the war he worked as a radio operator and earned the nickname Rocky. While in the Army, he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Korean Service Medal. After the war, he attended college on the GI bill and graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with a B.S. degree in engineering. He was proud to be the first in his family to graduate from college. While attending a friend’s wedding, he met Anne Giarrusso, and the two began dating. Before long, they were engaged. Struggling to make it to the church on time on a rainy wedding day, Joe slipped on the church steps, ending up with a small gash on his forehead for the wedding service.

Anne supported the couple early in their marriage by working at Woolworth’s while Joe finished school. Their first home was in Paterson near Anne’s parents, where the first two of their three daughters were born. The couple saved so they could move from Paterson to Wayne in time for their eldest daughter to start kindergarten in the Wayne school system. They managed to scrape together to buy a house that would remain their forever home. They proudly pulled into the driveway in Wayne in a 1957 aqua and white Chevrolet. After one snowstorm while the girls were young, Joe shoveled not only the driveway and sidewalks of their own property but continued to shovel the entire route to school so his daughters wouldn’t have to walk to school in the snow.

He spent his entire career with ITT Avionics as an engineer, developing electronic countermeasures for army aircraft, including Apache, Blackhawk and Cobra helicopters. He started as an apprentice engineer and after several promotions retired as Director of Electronic Warfare. During his career, he traveled frequently to Nevada for flight testing, and especially enjoying stopping in Las Vegas. He made many trips to Fort Monmouth, NJ, military bases in California and Fort Rucker, Alabama. He also had the opportunity to travel internationally, to England, Israel and Japan. During his time at IT&T, he was awarded the 1990 IT&T Corporate Harold S. Geneen Award for his work on leading the ALQ-136 program, a next-generation Advanced Threat Radar Jammer designed to protect future combat helicopters and aircraft against sophisticated radar-guided weapons systems. He was awarded the Gold Certificate of Merit from the Association of Old Crows, for achievement in contributing to the defense and security of the free world. He also received the Aircraft Survivability Equipment Award by the U.S. Army. This award is on permanent display at the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

When he wasn’t working, he enjoyed family vacations in Florida, Barnegat Bay, the Poconos, golf, league bowling, and playing cards with bowling buddies and summer get-togethers and BBQ’s at the family backyard pool with many of his relatives including his in-laws, nieces and nephews. Throughout the years of his life, he was best known for his love of mentoring and teaching. He had a natural talent for bringing out the best talent in others. He was always helping his daughters figure out tough math problems so they could get straight A’s in mathematics. His favorite things were spending time at home with his wife Anne and daughters Joanne, Sharon and Dawn, Anne’s warm smile, her love and admiration and her incredible cooking. As the years went on and his daughters married, he developed genuine love and respect for his sons-in-law Earl, Dave and Ed. Like every Italian, he relished in having his favorite foods that included seeded Italian bread with “gabagool” and lots of green olives, Sunday afternoon macaroni and meatballs, chicken parmigiana and veal cutlets, and going to Vitamia & Son’s for provolone, sausage bread and ravioli for Anne. He truly enjoyed trips to Atlantic City with Anne and sisters and brothers-in-law Tom, Pat, Dom and Lee.  

In retirement, he continued to devote time to family, including his four grandchildren, Kyle, Katie, Jordan and Nicole. He especially enjoyed painting and was quite a natural artist. He took great pride in working on getting the colors and dimensions exactly right. His grandchildren had their bedroom walls adorned with his beautiful paintings of Disney characters, heroes and princesses as they were growing up. His daughters each have scenic, abstract and other selected paintings in their homes that he painted especially for them. They will treasure them always.

As his health declined, he used his engineering background to carefully track his weight, sodium intake and other vital statistics. Even at 89 years old, married to Anne for almost 64 years, he would sit in the kitchen or the family room gently holding her hand. Their love for each other grew deeper and more tender each year.  In the end, he expressed that his greatest desire was to be at home. Among his last statements were love for Anne and his family, appreciation for his wife’s caregiver Val and he wished God’s blessings upon his family. Joseph was a faithful and devoted soldier, husband, son, and father. His love for God and family has no end.

Those considering a memorial donation are asked to direct them to:American Kidney Fund, 11921 Rockville Pike, Suite 300, Rockville, MD 20852  or   Paralyzed Veterans of America, 801 Eighteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006.