Germaine LaCroix Joseph

Our beloved mother, Germaine LaCroix Joseph, passed away on the morning of March 31, 2023, in Austin, Texas. Mrs. Joseph lived a truly remarkable life. Born in Thomond, Haiti, on May 3, 1939, she immigrated to New York City in 1965. Against the tumult of America's civil rights years, mom navigated the perilous racial divides of the 1960s to thrive as a lab technician at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she worked for forty years. Married with two children, by the mid-1970s, she was a single mom raising two sons in Jamaica, Queens. In 1976, the bicentennial year, she became an American citizen.

Mom loved America and Haiti, bequeathing her sons an unquenchable love of history, intellectual curiosity, and social justice. As a proud member of local 1199 SEIU, she marched on picket lines, worked long hours, and endured a grueling daily commute between Manhattan and Queens.

An organic intellectual able to communicate fluently in four languages (Haitian, French, English, and Spanish), Germaine LaCroix left Haiti after briefly being detained for participating in pro-democracy activism during the dictatorship of Francois Duvalier. She met and married Boulos Joseph, a fellow Haitian emigre, in 1966. After her firstborn child Marjorie died less than a week after birth, she drew strength and resilience from her religious faith.

A devout Christian and longtime member of New Bethel Baptist Church in Queens, mother drew a line in the sand regarding justice. Personally shy, she possessed a lovely singing voice whose Caribbean lilt turned religious hymns into something uniquely special. She loved her family passionately, prayed fiercely, and displayed tremendous courage in ensuring that her two sons, Drs. Kerith and Peniel Joseph would be able to flourish.

Our mother took great pride in her understanding of Haiti and its history as forming the hidden key that potentially unlocked a liberated future for Black folk worldwide. She introduced her sons to the modern legacy of the Haitian Revolution and figures such as Toussaint Louverture, insisted they read the historical work of C.L.R. James, and taught them that everyday struggles for dignity and citizenship ennobled us all.

In the 1990s, Mrs. Joseph returned to Haiti several times after a quarter century of exile, trips that reunited her with family and made her recall the simple pleasures of youth. In retirement, she visited Paris with her son, a trip that she always recalled fondly. In addition, she continued to read prodigiously, amplifying her innate curiosity on subjects that ranged from history and religion to science and politics.

This past September, a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis inspired her to make a transformational change. She moved two thousand miles from the house in Queens, New York, which she purchased in 1976, to Austin, Texas, to live with her youngest son.

Between hospital stays, rehabilitation centers, and doctor visits, mom found renewed strength and hope in doting on her granddaughters, Ayelet, Caitlin, and Viv. An expert and affectionate raconteur, she reveled in sharing rarely told and often hilarious secrets of her childhood in Haiti, commented on the tumultuous state of American politics, and prayed for her children and grandchildren.

Among the many joys of mom's time in Austin was the simple pleasure of enjoying her delicious cooking. Haitian meals of beans and rice, stewed chicken and fish, and legumes became the aromatic symbol of good days. Activities on those days included walks in her new tree-lined neighborhood. These scenes triggered memories of her childhood in Haiti.

Cancer is tough and remains undefeated in the long run. Mom battled short bouts of depression, anxiety, and fear in the face of her terminal diagnosis. Yet, without her daughter-in-law, Laura's selfless love and caretaking over the last six months, our family could not have survived, let alone thrive in the manner we have.

We are grateful to the dozens of health care workers from the hospitals and rehabilitation center and the home care aides who assisted in making mom's final months of living more joyous than sad.

Her luminous spirit could light up a whole house, let alone a single room. She remains the biggest inspiration for her sons and profoundly impacted thousands of lives through her work as a lab technologist, union member, mother, church missionary, sister, aunt, and grandmother.

She is survived by her sons, Kerith Joseph and Peniel E. Joseph; her daughters-in-law, Dawn Montague Joseph, and Laura Berkebile Joseph; her granddaughters, Caitlin and Ayelet; and her step-grandchildren, Vivienne and Saylor.

In lieu of flowers donations came be made in honor of Germain LaCroix Joseph to The Haitian Roundtable. https://thehaitianroundtable.org