Joseph Wood Moyle
Joseph's obituary
Joseph Wood Moyle, retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer, devoted husband, father, grandfather, amateur old time musician, and avid investor, with a keen wit and vivid command of geopolitics and history, died on July 3, 2024, in Eugene, Oregon. He was 84. The cause was heart failure and contusion from a fall.
Joe was born on January 1, 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the first of four children of Evelyn Moyle, an ornithologist and co-author Northland Wildflowers, and John B. Moyle, remembered as Minnesota’s “Aldo Leopold, a giant intellect, a Renaissance man, an early ecologist, a prolific and talented writer.”
Joe grew up on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, with sisters Susan and Virginia, and brother Peter. Summers were spent on the lake and sleeping porch, listening to the lapping waves and breeze through the leaves of a giant cottonwood tree. Joe devoured books, prided himself in his paper route, and enjoyed fishing, later teaching his daughters to catch and (to their dismay) gut sunfish during lakeside summer visits.
As a teenager, Joe discovered a passion for world affairs in the pages of his parents’ stacks of National Geographic and Life. He spent two formative summers working on his grandparents’ ranch in Lancaster, California, where he met his mentor, a cowboy named Bill Teuscher, who Joe credited with teaching him self-reliance.
Joe attended Stanford University, transferring to the University of Minnesota to earn a master’s degree in international relations. He subsequently studied German at the Monterey Language Institute and served in the Army in Berlin for three years.
Joe joined the Foreign Service in 1965, serving in Hong Kong; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Rangoon and Mandalay, Myanmar; Tripoli, Libya; Taipei, Taiwan, and Beijing, China, until his retirement in 1990. He helped establish Sungai Besi, a refugee camp for Vietnamese boat people, which relocated more than 250,000 refugees, and monitored student demonstrations in China leading up to the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. As a member of the diplomatic community, Joe was an enthusiastic member of the Hash House Harriers, and starred in a wickedly funny portrayal of Merlin in the Beijing British Embassy’s pantomime production of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
On April 22, 1972, while serving in Taipei, Taiwan, he married Hu Mei Chien (later Emily Moyle), the vivacious daughter of Admiral Hu Chia Hen, martyred commander of Project National Glory, Taiwan’s final attempt to reclaim mainland China, on August 6, 1965. Curious, adventurous, and open-minded, Joe and Emily visited 89 countries during his lifetime.
A self-taught musician, Joe learned piano (notably Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag), as well as old-time fiddle and mandolin, serving as the President of the Oregon Old Time Fiddlers’ Association and editor of The Hoedowner for over 20 years and frequently performing at grange dances and senior centers. Joe was a gifted writer and chronicler of his family history.
Joe is survived by his wife, Emily, brother Peter of Davis, CA, sister Susan of Asheville, North Carolina and daughters Eunice Moyle and Sabrina Moyle of San Francisco and Hillsborough, CA, and grandchildren Jude James, Imogen James, Alexander Abdey, James Abdey, and William Abdey.
The family will hold a private ceremony later this year.
Gifts in his honor may be made to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
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