Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Givens Griffin, Jr., USNR (Ret.), CRNA, died on September 12, 2021, in Mauston, WI, after giving cancer a hard time — much like he had to his friends and family for all his 83 years.

Joe was born at home in Thomaston, GA, on December 24, 1937, to Joseph and Emma Griffin. (His three older siblings were, quite frankly, unimpressed with their noisy new Christmas present.) Joe enjoyed a typical childhood, filled with riding bikes and causing mischief in his small town with his friends and brothers. He got his first job at the age of 12, as a bag boy at the grocery store. During his teenage years, he worked as a movie theatre projectionist and at a Blue Bird school bus factory.

While attending Perry High School, he was the manager of the basketball team and competed in pole vaulting, in which he won a bronze medal at the state track meet. Upon graduating in 1957, he matriculated at Georgia Southwestern University, studying liberal arts. After just a year at college, however, Joe decided he’d like to get paid to learn, rather than the other way around.

So he joined the Navy, where he received medical training and got to travel the States, frequently hitchhiking home during his leaves. He remained in active service for four years and in the Reserves for 23 years. He was patriotic and proud of his military career, retiring as a Lieutenant Commander from the U.S. Navy Reserves in 2002.

In 1963, Joe became only the second male in history to be accepted into Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing. Three years later, he graduated as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, a role he was grateful to hold for the next four decades.

Joe soon began working at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, where he became smitten with a pretty lab tech. After dating and a courtship in the Rochester area, he and Karen Gordon were wed. They would stay together for the next 47 years.

Joe, always looking to improve his ability to provide, moved his wife and their two children around frequently. They lived in five different states over the years. Eventually, he found a place to call home in Mauston, where he worked at Mile Bluff Medical Center for many years. He was passionate about his career and his patients, and he especially enjoyed working with children, using a ventriloquist doll named Buddy to put kids at ease before surgery.

In 1996, Joe and Karen finally escaped winter by moving to his childhood home of Perry, GA. After Joe retired in the early 2000s, he and Karen became snowbirds, spending summers at their cabin in northern Wisconsin, and winters in Georgia. When Karen passed away in 2015, Joe returned to Mauston full time to be near his daughter and grandchildren.

Joe enjoyed building and flying R/C model airplanes; woodworking, especially making nativity scene mangers; waterskiing (he was on a team until his mid 70s); and “repairing” small engines, which often meant taking them apart and never getting them working again. During the 90s he competed in masters track and field, scaring his family by pole vaulting in his late 50s (and came home from training once with a broken nose). He loved collecting things, particularly Beanie Babies (which he ultimately gave to kids in hospitals) and Happy Meal toys (anything to drive Karen crazy, right?). Most of all, he cherished time spent with his grandsons: taking them hunting and fishing, and attending all of their sporting events.

Joe was curious, adventurous, and unafraid to try new things: During his life he dabbled in all kinds of hobbies and interests, such as attending auctioneering school, attempting to try taxidermy, and working on his single engine pilot license. After retirement, he volunteered at the Museum of Aviation on Robins Air Force Base, and worked at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, where he drove stock cars at 120 mph. He was civically active, too: a 32nd degree Mason; a member and past master of Concord Lodge No. 13 in Watertown, SD; a member of the Scottish Rite in Freeport, IL; and a member of the American Legion and Shriners International (one of his favorite things was driving his Shriner miniature car as part of the Shriners parade unit).

Joe was the kind of person who always showed up for his kids, whether they were competing in an out-of-state track meet or getting in trouble. No matter if he was proud or disappointed, he was there. He was reliable, steadfast, and supportive; an honest hard worker who led by example, and whose top priority was always providing for his family. Which is probably why he remained dignified and calm until the very end — Joe had accomplished what he’d set out to do, and he left this world with few regrets.

He will be fondly remembered as a loyal husband, father, and friend; as a man who demonstrated his love through his actions rather than his words. Before he passed, though, Joe did say one thing: He wanted his friends and colleagues to know how thankful he was for “putting up with him and his crazy ways” over the years. He was eternally grateful to them for teaching him how to be a friend and a caring person, and for preparing him for this “ultimate trip.”

Joe was predeceased by his parents, his brother Donald, and his wife Karen. He is survived by his sister Jean, brother Paul, and his 2 children and 3 grandchildren.

There will be a visitation Friday, September 17th at Bethany Lutheran Church in New Lisbon from 4pm to 6pm for friends and family.

Funeral service will be held at 11am, Saturday, September 18th at Bethany Lutheran Church in New Lisbon. Friends and family are welcome to call beginning at 9:30am.

Graveside service will be at 4pm at the Hillside Cemetery in St. Charles, MN.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the fund they have started in his memory to support Mauston High School Anatomy & Physiology and Bio-technology classes and improvements to the Mauston Outdoor Athletic Complex, directly to the school, or directly to the Shriners Hospitals for Children (https://www.shrinerschildrens…)

His family would like to give special thanks to Dr. Hamid Emamekhoo, UW Carbone Cancer Center, Serenity House Tomah Hospice and all at the Mile Bluff Infusion and Cancer Care.

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