February 26, 1943-September 18, 2025

Josef Kolcz was born in 1943 as the first son to Maria and Waclaw Kolcz in Poland. Along with his parents and older sister, Sophia Zetmeir, he was taken to Hitler’s German labor camps where they remained first as “unpaid staff’ during WWII and then as displaced persons after the second world war ended. Two younger brothers, Lester and George, were born as the family waited to immigrate to Bavaria, Kansas, USA in 1949.

Tragedy struck the family again when his parents perished in 1950 in an automobile accident while on their way to a Palm Sunday mass during a horrific Kansas Dust storm. A physician Dr. Samuel T. Coughlin and his wife, Joan Clover Coughlin, adopted all four siblings and his new life began in Larned, Kansas, as Joseph John Coughlin in 1950.

Joseph graduated from High School in Larned and then graduated from St. Benedict’s College in 1966 with a major in English and minors in art and philosophy. He went on to serve in the Peace Corps in Kenya and wound up in Vietnam in the U.S. Army initially working to ensure that the deceased veterans’ bodies and possessions were sent back to the U.S.A. to their respective parents. A stint of burning human refuse in the base camp latrines followed. Joseph was never involved in direct combat; his literacy and typing skills afforded him a support staff position, writing commendations, arranging R & R for fellow soldiers and guarding the military camp’s perimeters. His military camp was newly built on terrain that had just been defoliated with Agent Orange and situated over the infamous Tunnels of Cu Chi. To his knowledge he “never shot anyone but, he was constantly shot at.”

Joseph’s 15 minutes of fame in Vietnam came in 1967 when Bob Hope, the famous and magnanimous American comedian and actor asked Joseph to appear in his show along with Miss World, Madeleine Hartog-Bel from Peru. Why him? Joseph was literate in French and the script called for the words “Jolies Seins” to be spoken. A kiss from Miss World followed to the roar of the gathered thousands of horny GIs.

On one of his own R & R’s, Joseph travelled to Sydney, Australia in 1969 where he met his wife of 55 years, Maria Coughlin (nee Kalpiaka), also a displaced person. They corresponded for a year before marrying in January 1970, but only after Joseph was honorably discharged in August of 1969 with the rank of SSG(T) and half a dozen medals.

They travelled together to the U.S. and settled in Kansas City, Missouri. Not able to secure a promised art position with Hallmark Cards, Joseph pursued a teaching certificate at Rockhurst College under the GI Bill while his wife secured a Social Work position at the Cardiac Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

Joseph spent the first ten years teaching art at Bishop O’Hara High School then teaching at Rockhurst High School and finally at the Paseo Academy of the Visual and Performing Arts. Teaching and mentoring teens were just two of Joseph’s many passions and his students excelled in art competitions throughout the city as well as winning numerous city and regional basketball tournaments. Joseph coached basketball as a volunteer as well as forming and conducting student chess clubs. His love of classical music encouraged Paseo students to gather for years to perform on his backyard patio in Morningside. Joseph’s last sounds heard on September 18^th, 2025, were those of Handel’s Messiah.

As an artist in his own right, Joseph’s oil paintings and portraits grace his home as well as the homes of family, friends and fellow artists. His banners were flown in Brookside for years. His painted logos graced schools and local businesses. His portrait of the Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry in 1961, Melvin Calvin, was commissioned by friend Dr. Alex Susan, physicist, and personally presented to Melvin during an International Scientific Conference sponsored by Midwest Research Institute in 1985.

As a self-taught Calligrapher for fifty years, he gifted that talent too on every envelope or celebratory invitation, on business walls and his own garage where the words “Carpe diem et noctem”, garnered him the KC Beautification Award, “The George” in 2007. George Kessler was the architect who designed Kansas City’s Boulevards in the 1890’s.

Another of Joseph’s passions, golf, afforded him to be recognized in 2017 by the Kansas City Starfor his hole in one and provided him opportunity to volunteer at the city’s Heart of America Golf Course. He was back on the greens just 10 weeks after hip replacement in 2022.

An indefatigable conversationist, for 25 years Joseph corresponded with David Malouf, an Australian author he met in Kansas City. For both luddites, writing and reading letters allowed both to explore the “mysteries and paradoxes of life” and just be friends. Friendships were very important to Joseph.

Most important though to Joseph was his immediate family; beloved wife Maria and sons Samuel II and Andrew (wife Emily). Joseph, AKA Gramps, loved and cherished his grandchildren; Sara, Jack and twins Sienna and Justin; Maxwell and twins Henry and Carter. His heart “skipped a beat” when anyone of them entered his study to rummage through his books, model ships, trains, planes and cars, played chess and used his beloved typewriter, or painted on his unfinished canvases. Nephews and nieces garnished his love too both here in the States and Australia. Sister, brother, sisters and brothers-in-law, were treasured and celebrated.

Ultimately his untreated macular degeneration during the COVID years robbed him of his ability to see; his subsequent numerous chemo therapies resulted in neuropathy of both his hands and robbed him of his ability to write, paint, play golf or chess or conduct most activities of daily living. His multiple cancers were belatedly attributed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, but his brain remarkably was left intact his whole life. On September 7^th, 2025, he was able to recite Shakespeare’s complete soliloquy “To Be or Not To Be” from memory to those near and dear to him.

Joseph was cremated on September 23, 2025, wearing a T-shirt with the words “Consider this diem carped” and his ashes will be scattered into the Pacific Ocean once his wife can join him as an ash.

Rest in peace sweet, sweet Joseph and be as free as the hummingbirds you welcomed to our patio each summer.