Philip Joseph, 103; simply a 'phenomenon'

Philip Joseph, a lifelong newspaper reader and baseball fan who was among the first wave of families from Brooklyn to move to Long Island, was in front of the television wearing his Mets hat this past opening day.

He followed the Mets and the stock market by reading two newspapers a day -- usually without glasses.

Joseph, 103, died April 11 at his home in Roslyn Heights after a brief battle with congestive heart failure.

Born in 1907 on Lorimer Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Joseph dropped out of school as a teenager to work in his immigrant father's dress factory in the Garment District. He inherited the company, S. Joseph & Sons, then twice became a real estate pioneer, moving to Lawrence in 1939 and, after selling the company, to South Florida in 1955, said his daughter, Patricia Gilmore.

Until the day he died Joseph closely followed news from baseball and the financial markets, said Gilmore, with whom he lived in Roslyn Heights for the last 10 years of his life.

"He was a very mentally active person," Gilmore said. "He was very involved with his family and involved in financial markets. And he had a soft spot for the Mets."

Joseph, his daughter said, established his independent streak early in life. In 1930 he sought to wed his childhood sweetheart, Beatrice Berkowitz of Brooklyn. But custom of the time dictated that she couldn't marry until after her older sister did. So they eloped that July, and had a full wedding the next January.

"They never told me about it until 30 years later," Gilmore said.

The couple had been married for 77 years until Beatrice's death in 2007. When she died, Gilmore said, Joseph's family feared that he might not last much longer. But he did and was healthy, except for an injury that necessitated a hip replacement at age 101 -- his first trip to the hospital, his daughter said.

"Anybody he had contact with, they were amazed that a man of that age still read two newspapers a day," Gilmore said. "But he did. He watched the news, he knew what was going on."

On his 100th birthday, Joseph received a commendation from Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. For his 103rd birthday, he celebrated at the Jolly Fisherman restaurant in Roslyn.

"To me, he was a phenomenon," Gilmore said. "He's not the only one who lived to be 103 and a half, but he grew with the times. He was a class act from beginning to end."

Joseph is survived by Gilmore, his son, Stuart Joseph of Bellows Falls, Vt.; three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Along with his wife, he was preceded in death by three sisters and a brother.