Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Joe Salem, 80, benefactor who fed needy, dies

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Thursday, April 26, 2001
Joe Salem, 80, benefactor who fed needy, dies
Businessman served in Texas Legislature
By Guy H. Lawrence and Sandy Segrist
Caller-Times

George Tuley/Caller-Times file

Joe Salem, owner of a jewlry store, created a legacy by funding the annual Boys & Girls Club Thanksgiving dinner for more than half a century. Salem, who served in the Texas Legislature for eight years, is shown here in August 1997.

Joseph "Joe" Salem, a businessman and former state legislator who created a legacy of feeding the needy on Thanksgiving for more than half a century, died Wednesday at Christus Spohn Hospital Shoreline. He was 80.
   Salem was ill for the last five years of his life and had been in the hospital for the last 25 days, said his daughter, Chris Salem-Scott.
   Salem, who owned a jewelry store in Padre Staples Mall, served in the Texas Legislature for eight years, and made a failed run for U.S. House of Representatives in 1982.
   His enduring legacy to the community has been his annual Thanksgiving dinner he funded at the Boys & Girls Club.
   Salem's giving nature comes from his upbringing, family members said. Salem's father, Sam, ran a grocery store on Leopard Street. The family frequently shared what they could with the less fortunate.
   "All of our lives it seemed like he was always loving people and caring about people," said Marie Salem Habeeb, his sister. "Whatever we had we shared with others."
   Salem's father died at age 48 and his older brother, Thomas, died at age 13, leaving Salem as the head of the household
   When Salem was 15, he rounded up a few hungry neighborhood boys, raided a few steaks from his father's store, and asked the staff of Success Cafe to cook up a dinner for his friends. It was a start. For the past 57 years, Salem funded the Boys & Girls Club Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, almost 1,000 people showed up for the free meal.
   Lisa Saenz, program director of the Boys & Girls Club, said the energetic Salem was always a joy to work with. Salem purchased everything from the turkey legs to the napkins, she said.
   "Each year the food would run out and he would order more," said Saenz, who worked with Salem on the dinners for eight years. "The outcome was that successful."
   Saying hello
   Every Thanksgiving at the club, he would begin the day saying hello to the people who came.
   "He started the day here with us because there were a lot of people who would come to see him," Saenz said.
   In recent years, Salem began giving away bicycles at the dinners.
   Those gifts were wonderful surprises for the children of families like Yvette and Leonard Suarez. In the last two years they went to the dinners, their twin sons, Leonard and Leon Anthonie, now 4, each won bikes in drawings.
   "I thought it was a very good thing that he did for the community," said Yvette Suarez. "There was a lot of people who didn't have family to spend Thanksgiving with. There, everybody is family."
   Leonard Suarez said his sons were surprised when they received the bicycles.
   His reason for giving
   That reaction from the children was his reason for giving, Salem said last year.
   "Their eyes just light up. It's a great feeling. There is still poverty. There is always going to be poverty. But if we all share what we have with those who are impoverished, it would help tremendously," Salem said in an interview published in December.
   Following high school, Salem volunteered for World War II. After nine months as a private, he entered the Army Air Forces, where he became a pilot and flight instructor.
   When Salem returned, he entered the jewelry business.
   Salem served eight years in the Texas House of Representatives.
   There, he worked to draft and pass laws that allowed residents to enjoy area beaches free of charge, and supported legislation that helped pave the way for a four-year university.
   An interim speaker
   Salem-Scott remembers going to the Legislature and being in awe of her father, who served as an interim speaker of the house, she said.
   "All my life my dad was helping other people," she said. "People who weren't able to speak for themselves, they needed a voice and they found that voice in my father."
   R. J. Herschbach, retired assistant fire captain, said Salem ushered legislation to give police and firemen collective bargaining rights.
   In 1971, Salem was bold enough to fly to Paris at his own expense and make a personal plea at the Vietnam embassy to release the American prisoners of war and end the Vietnam War.
   He won a meeting with a Vietnamese negotiator, but Salem's efforts were rebuffed.
   Salem's failed 1982 race against Solomon P. Ortiz would close his political career.
   Ortiz, who still holds the 27th Congressional District seat he fought Salem for almost 20 years ago, called Salem a good competitor and a benefactor to the Coastal Bend.
   "He was very fair," said Ortiz. "It was a clean campaign, and he had a good organization." Visitation will be from noon to 5 p.m. today at Maxwell P. Dunne Funeral Service. A rosary will be recited at 7 p.m., today at Corpus Christi Cathedral. Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Friday at Corpus Christi Cathedral with burial to follow at Rose Hill Memorial Park.


Contact Guy H. Lawrence at _886-3792 or at lawrenceg@caller.com

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