Attorney Joseph P. Dever, right, along with his father, the late Joseph I. Dever.
Editor’s note: Joseph I. Dever, a Marblehead resident for 50 years, a veteran and First Justice of Lynn District Court from 1995 to 2005, died on Jan. 24. His son, Attorney Joseph P. Dever, delivered this eulogy at his father’s funeral in Our Lady, Star of the Sea Church on Jan. 29.
My mother and my brothers and sister teased me that I am the perfect person for this job. If you ask them, they will tell you that I have an uncanny ability to remember only the good times. For my brothers and sister, growing up in Marblehead with Dad as our father was, in a phrase, good times. Our father, in his kind and loving manner, was teaching us by example, shaping us and showing us the way. Along that way, we had a lot of fun.
The first inkling I had that Dad was no ordinary father was also my introduction to the theater. From the time I was 9 or 10, I would sit mesmerized as Dad took the stage. Musicals and dramas were his favorites. Dad was Tevye in Fiddler on the roof; he was Claudius in Hamlet. He also did comedy (both high and low — and, as anyone who was his guest at the Clover Club knows, sometimes farce). I will never forget the show Next, in which Dad played an oafish loser named Marion Cheever. It was a dark comedy about a man trying to flunk his draft board’s physical exam. When he succeeded in achieving 4-F status, he was even more depressed than when he was drafted. What I remember most about the show, though, was my brother Paul, in gales, falling on the floor and laughing hysterically. Needless to say, that night Paul became the favored son and he was invited to sit in the front row for every show thereafter.
Dad was also a trooper, especially when it came to his children’s school and extra-curricular activities. With our school work, my mother would be left to help us with math and science and other mundane subjects. If it was poetry though, or social studies or literature, or if someone had to give a speech or a presentation, my Dad was all in. I remember one 8th grade assignment my sister had. She was struggling trying to write a poem about whaling. I can recall Dad sitting at our dining room table helping her with the stanza “Lobscouse and hardtack are all that they eat. Oh, how they wish they could taste some fresh meat.” Dad called it poetry. Lesley cried.
The real proof of his mettle, however, was youth sports and activities. As kids, we had grueling schedules. Baseball, soccer, basketball, dance recitals, violin concerts. Every night, Saturdays and Sundays there were games and more games. At Gatchell’s, at the old Junior High, at Seaside, Dad was at every one of them. And he wasn’t at every game or recital because his daughter or his sons were the stars; he was at every game or recital because he loved us and I think because he enjoyed socializing with the coaches and other parents. The outcome of the game was never important. The fact that you were playing and having fun was all that mattered. On particularly busy Saturdays, he would sometimes take advantage of his role as timekeeper at park and rec and CYO basketball games. I still remember kids and parents staring dumbfounded when the final horn sounded, wondering how an hour-long game could finish in 45 minutes. Dad continued that dedication right through the end, attending another never-ending round of games and recitals for his grandchildren.
As kids, it also didn’t hurt to have the Marblehead Police on your side. Almost every officer, it seemed, had been a student of Dad’s at North Shore Community College where he taught Constitutional law and a class on Search and Seizure. At least once, or if you’re talking about my brother Rob and his friends, more than once, we found out that the size of the break you were about to get correlated directly with the grade Dad had given the officer in class. Fortunately for us, Dad gave a lot of good grades.
Dad was also, of course, my introduction to the law. It began with the Massachusetts Defenders Committee. When we were young, my brothers and sister would go with him to his office at One City Hall Square in Lynn. We were allowed to sit at everyone’s desk, use the telephone intercoms, spin around in everyone’s chairs, everyone except Larry McGuire’s that is, who we were told was particularly well organized and would not appreciate having his papers disturbed.
When I was a little older, and after a nationwide search, I was somehow able to find a summer job at the Essex Superior Court Clerk’s office. It was at the courthouse, that I saw my father in action. The Clerk at the time, another kind and generous man named Jim Leary, encouraged me to watch Dad in the courtroom. And I did. It was here that I began to understand the power of oratory. Dad used words and phrases that Judges seemed to recognize. If the defendant standing before the judge was “in poor posture” it was certain whatever he had done precluded leniency and that a plea for mercy would follow. If the defendant had “deep roots in the community” an argument that the defendant had a family and should be allowed to go home on bail would follow. Every argument he made began with “may it please the court” and when he began his response to a skeptical judge’s question with the phrase, “with all due respect,” the judge seemed to actually believe it.
Dad was friends with everyone. He treated everyone the same. He was happy among people from all walks of life. His friends crossed the entire spectrum. He enjoyed poets and politicians, fishermen and bankers, doctors and contractors, firefighters, police officers, ad men, salesmen. As my then six-year old son Joseph once said in response to a man at another coffee shop who said, “I know your Grampy!” “Yeah, everyone knows my Grampy.”
He also loved lawyers and lawyers loved him. He loved one particular group of Essex County lawyers known as the Raccoons. Always able to gild the lily, the Raccoons were, as he used to say, “a social fraternity of the bar and bench in Essex County.” They were also “well-known in café society.” The Raccoons at their core, however, were egalitarian. Whether you were the judge, the ADA, the defense lawyer, the probation officer, the clerk or court reporter, you were welcome in the Raccoons. There was no pretense, no ideological divide, only fun.
The same was true of his breakfast groups, his luncheon groups and his book clubs. A poorly kept secret was that Dad had breakfast groups all over town. Deacon Joe Whipple recalled to me the several times he would run into Dad at Walgreens getting the newspapers. Dad would be quickly finishing his Dunkin Donuts coffee so he could throw out his cup and go into Starbucks to meet his next breakfast club. Like my daughter Eleanor wrote, “all it took to know that Grampy was a big deal, was to walk into a coffee shop with him.” Everyone greeted him warmly, everyone knew his order. When at his breakfast meetings, for Dad, occupation, station in life, politics, none of it mattered. He loved talking about and debating the issues of the day with everyone. He loved reading books and even more, talking about books. He got a kick out of it all. He saw the humor in everything.
Since he passed away, lawyers, judicial colleagues, former students, friends and relatives have all written or said to me something along the lines of “he was the finest man I ever met.” Or “he taught me what it was to be a judge or lawyer.” Or “every important thing I learned about being a judge, I learned from him.” He simply loved helping people. Time and time again, I would go with him to ceremonies marking a fellow judge’s ascension to a higher court or retirement. Time and time again, that judge would acknowledge the role Dad had played in shaping his or her judicial philosophy and temperament. I remember Justice Agnes referring to the quote Dad kept on his bench at the Lynn District Court, it was from Bill Clinton’s first inaugural address, “But for fate, we the fortunate and the unfortunate, might have been each other.” It was that guiding principle, I think, that made Dad a great judge. That and his heartfelt belief that, as one of his best friends and the late pastor of this church, Dennis Burns, used to say, no one, NO ONE, is irredeemable.
After he retired, Dad always wanted to know about my day. Where had I been? Who had I saw, who was asking for him? He wanted to know which judges treated me well and which had treated me shabbily. I think it would be fair to say that because of him, I was never treated shabbily. Because of Dad, the practice of law was easy for me. At every courthouse, it seemed, was someone who knew Dad. Passing through the metal detector, the court officer would ask for him. Checking in with clerk’s office, the administrative assistants would ask for him. In the courtroom, the clerk, the probation officer, the ADA and other members of the bar, all would ask for him. After my appearance, invariably the judge would motion for me to approach side bar and ask, “how is your father?” Because of him, wherever I went, whomever I met, I was greeted with warm smiles and respect.
He was a great lawyer, a great judge. More than that, he was a great father. He adored my mother. He was the man I most admired. Because of him, I never doubted for a second who I was or what kind of man I wanted to be. By his example, he made my life, personal and professional, easy. He showed me the way and my hope of hopes is that I can do the same for my children.
Rest in peace, Dad.