Joseph T. Capone was born one hundred ago on April 21, 1923 and lived almost a full century. This archive is dedicated to preserving and sharing his legacy. Below are the first of many photos, articles, and memories from his long, remarkable life.

Note: Setting up this archive has taken longer than I hoped, and there are many wonderful items still to be posted. Please return to the page soon to discover new items as they are added. Thanks to everyone who already contributed to this collection. It’s not too late to contribute!

One of my favorite memories is a magic show, of course. This was sometime in the early 90s I’m pretty sure I was still in high school. My mom was a volunteer fire fighter an EMT for Ingram. I don’t remember what the Event was. It might have been a Christmas party, but my mom hired Pap to do the magic show for the kids.
All the kids are sitting on the floor so excited to see a magician. I can’t remember where my siblings were, but I imagine they were sitting on the floor with the others. Grandma was sitting at a table off to the side. I was standing off to the other side with my mom. There was some kind of music on, introductory type music. He walks out with his full suit on, top hat and a big smile on his face, handsome as ever. The kids started cheering as he started his magic show. I remember watching the kids they were so mesmerized, smiling, waiting to see the magic.
I was standing off to the side with my mom, she was watching with a big smile on her face. I can tell she was so proud to have him there for the kids. Everybody was entertained all were watching. He had a dove with him for a trick. I guess he would wrap the dove in newspaper and put it in the inner pocket of his jacket for the trick but he fumbled a little bit and dropped the whole package. The dove in the newspaper hit the floor, and the bird started flopping around, trying to get out of the newspaper. He laughed and smiled, and tried to recover the trick, all the kids got a real kick out of it. Grandma was smiling and laughing a bit she’d seen all the mistakes over the years. Some of the kids knew that was not part of the trick some didn’t. it didn’t matter the kids loved it, and they all cheered and gave him applause.
I just thought it was really special having them there, outside of a family party and with my mom watching him do what he loved to do.
❤️Rachel