SALEM: Joseph A. Newman, 58, died Saturday, April 21, 2007 at his home surrounded by his family. He was the husband of Sarah M. Smith.
Born in New York City on August 16, 1948, he was the son of the late Dr. Walter and Elizabeth (Curley) Newman. He was raised in Yonkers, where he graduated from The Halstead School.
Joe first moved to the Boston area as a student at Emerson College where he received a BA in English. He went on to study creative writing at UMass/Amherst where he received his Masters in Fine Art and had numerous poems published in various creative writing journals. He moved back to the Boston area in 1978, taking courses at the Harcourt Bindery where he ultimately began his bookbinding career. Joe moved to Beverly in 1980 and has resided in Salem for the past seventeen years.
Joe spent the past twenty-three years as a master binder at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, where he had been responsible for book conservation and binding. Through his career, Joe worked on a variety of high profile restoration projects including the Magna Carta, the Nuremburg Chronicles, as well as a sixth century Koran and Babe Ruth’s birth certificate. His work remains unparalleled in the world of book conservation and binding.
He was a past president of the New England Chapter of the Guild of Bookworkers. His fine art bindings have been exhibited at galleries and museums across the world, including the Louvre and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and he has received numerous awards for his work. He was also once the proprietor of the Prides Crossing Bindery in Beverly Farms. Joe’s last years were spent pursuing his love of gourmet cooking and photography.
In addition to his wife, Joe is survived by his beloved children, Jessica and Joseph Newman and their mother, Kathleen Sheehan, two sisters, Sara and Carolyn Newman, four brothers, Walter, Michael, William and Richard Newman, many nieces and nephews and his beloved Springer, “Ollie.”
His funeral services will be held on Wednesday in the Grondin Funeral Home, 376 Cabot Street, Beverly at 10 A.M. Visiting hours will be held on Tuesday from 5 – 8 P.M. Relatives and friends are cordially invited to attend. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in his memory to the Jimmy Fund, 44 Binney St., Boston, MA 02115.