Note: This obituary has been updated with information from the family on a memorial to be held Saturday, June 27.

Joseph Dennis Dwyer

June 15,1943–Nov. 11, 2024

Joseph “Joe” Dennis Dwyer, 81,  died on Nov. 11, 2024, in Coolidge, Arizona . A memorial will be at 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 27, 2026, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, with interment to follow at 12:30 p.m. at Hickerson Memorial Cemetery on Diamond Ridge and a reception at 1:30 p.m. at Land’s End.

Joe was born on June 15, 1943, in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, to Vincent Joseph Dwyer and Esther Mary Dwyer nee Sichler and siblings Patrick, Mary and Angela. 

The youngest of the four children, Joe grew up often hunting with his dog before school and then leaving his catch with his mom. He enjoyed an active social life and had many friends all through school. Joe loved deer hunting and bird hunting as well as fishing during his years growing up.

As an adult, Joe would go hunting and trout fishing in Montana many times during the years that he and Sharan lived and worked there as a young couple. After their move to Alaska, Joe preferred halibut fishing in Kachemak Bay and dipnetting the Kenai River.

As a young man, Joe worked for the local grocer as a butcher. He also helped out with the family butchering. This would be a lifelong hobby of Joe’s: to get to know the local butcher, carefully select the cuts he wanted and then age the meat himself to a perfect tenderness. His family always looked forward to his steaks, often preferring them to anything they could get at a restaurant.

Upon graduating high school, Joe married his high school sweetheart, Sharan Jeannine Green, who would share the next 63 years of their well-traveled life together. They left Wisconsin in 1961 to live in Montana where their first four children were born. They were in the lumber business until 1970 at which time they moved to Wyoming to work the oil patch. Working together, Joe drove water trucks and picked up odd jobs building his knowledge base around that industry, while Sharan raised their children. Eventually, they were able  to save up enough money to move to Alaska in 1975, achieving a longtime dream.

After they drove up the Alcan, they waited for housing to open up in Anchorage by living in Centennial Campground for a summer. By the end of the summer, Joe had gotten a job working for Alyeska Service Company. The family would eventually settle on the Kenai Peninsula where they welcomed their fifth child. Joe would stay with the pipeline company, rising through the ranks to supervisor, overseeing  several pump stations over the 27 years that he was under their employ. After retiring, they talked him into coming back to do contract work for the next several years.

In 2017, Joe retired from work outside the home for good. He and Sharan began their much anticipated travel around the country, often staying at their park in Arizona in the winter between forays to various states to see places old and new, family and friends. In the summer, they loved spending time back in Alaska with family and enjoying more time with friends.

Joe is survived by his wife Shara; their five children, Jennifer (Bryan), Joseph, Anne (Garret), Shannon, Mary (Henry); and grandchildren, Jacob (Erica), Van (Katelyn), Matthew (Kat), Benjamin (Michelle), Thomas Joseph (Zoe), Jason (Hannah), Lydia, Blake, Shannon Rachel (Nathan), Morgan (Andrew), Madison, Joseph; and great-grandchildren, Stella, Arthur, Carla, Henry, Owen, Charlotte, Hamish, Nora, Ruby, Vincent and Cole.