DR. JOSEPH L. FAUST, III, age 84, beloved husband of 61 years to Mary Ann (nee Mullen); loving father of Debbie, Joseph L., IV (Kristine, deceased), Michael (Catherine), Daniel (Lillian), David (Cheryl), Mary Kay, Bob and Laura; father-in-law of Kevin McHale; proud grandfather of 25 and great-grandfather of 8; brother of Judy Guarnera (Steve Kliewer); uncle and great uncle of many.  U.S. Army veteran.  Dr. Faust was a longtime devoted dentist on Cleveland's west side in Kamms Corner.  Passed away suddenly June 30, 2022.  Funeral Mass Tuesday, July 5, The Church of St. Clarence (30106 Lorain Rd.) at 2:00 P.M. Friends may call at CHAMBERS FUNERAL HOME of NORTH OLMSTED, 29150 LORAIN RD. AT STEARNS RD., TUESDAY 12 NOON - 1:30 P.M.  In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Habitat for Humanity:

Joseph Louis Francis Faust III was born June 27, 1938, to Joseph Louis and Loretta Faust at St. John's Hospital in his beloved Cleveland, Ohio. Joe's younger sister Judy arrived a year and 13 days after, and they shared regular contact and fun birthday wishes back and forth as kids and adults, despite eventually being separated when Judy moved to California to raise her family. Just this week, Judy told us that Dad had sent her birthday card on June 28 th , a week early this year, seemingly to ensure that she would receive it. Judy routinely shared stories of the efforts Joe would take to defend her from the neighborhood bullies, at school, during challenging personal crises, and even to their parents as he would often 'take the fall' for some of their shared transgressions!

From his earliest days attending school at St. Ignatius Elementary School, Joe was a team player, both on and off the baseball field - always a friend to his classmates, teammates, and to Judy. Joe and Judy grew up on West 88 th Street, and Joe's lifelong, steadfast work ethic took root through his first jobs, cycling down the streets of Clark-Fulton, delivering his hometown newspaper, The Cleveland Press, and setting pins at the local bowling alley.

Joe attended high school as the first full-graduating class of the newly established St. Edward High School, occasionally working with classmates to help finish digging out the basement of the still under-construction school building. Joe continued to enjoy his love of sports throughout his school years, studying German and Latin, and thriving in mathematics. It was in his senior year of high school that Joe met his future wife, Mary Ann, while working as a packer at Fishers – a local market, managed by Charlotte Mullen, Mary Ann's mother. Joe would often be visited by Mary Ann at work, as she and her sister Patricia would find occasion to roll their wagon to the market to visit and pick up a "forgotten" item from their previous grocery run. It wasn't long before the two began to date outside of the check-out line and were sharing a sausage/pepperoni pizza on their first date at Peppy's Pizza. Later attending Mary Ann's prom – to no surprise to their friends – the loving couple left prom that evening crowned king and queen in Joe's $99 new-old Buick, appropriately nicknamed the "Silver Bullet".

Joe soon left the nest of northeast Ohio to attend Case Western Reserve University, where he was accepted into the pre-med program. Joe's ambition to study medicine stemmed from his hope to discover a cure for his mother's cancer diagnosis. Together through college, Joe and Mary Ann would often study together, Joe tutoring Mary Ann on German and mathematics. It was soon time for the loving couple to take the next step in theirjourney together, as Joe proposed to Mary Ann in 1956 at Tony's Restaurant in Kamm's Corner. Graduating from Case Western in 1960, Joe focused his post-grad studies on dentistry, enrolling in Case Western's Dentistry School. But wedding bells soon rang, as Joe and Mary Ann began to build their soon to be expansive family, marrying on September 24, 1960, in the church of their mutual grade school alma mater, St. Ignatius. In 1961, Joe completed his dental studies and enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving as an Army Captain dental specialist. His service to our nation's military brought him and his now-growing family of 4 to Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas. Joe served honorably during his time with the U.S. Army, providing Fort Hood officers and soldiers with dental care and those returning from Vietnam with oft needed restorative care. He also found himself at the center of the action on base, serving alongside his fellow soldiers in war games performed in the Texan desert due to increasing tensions.

Joe was honorably discharged from service in 1965 and moved his family back to their home state, settling in West Park first on Sedalia Ave, and finally on W 161 st Street, with West Park being their home for 14 years. The Faust family continued to grow, now 10 strong, with 8 children, Debbie, Joe, Michael, Dan, Dave, Mary Kay, Bob, and Laura. The family became a fixture of the West Park community, with all children attending St. Patricks's West Park Elementary, next door to their home parish of St. Patrick's, where Joe's strong faith shone through his parish involvement lectoring at Sunday Mass, serving as an extraordinary eucharistic minister, and as a member of St. Vincent DePaul Society and innumerable church functions and activities

Joe and Mary Ann's lives in West Park centered around their family, with Joe's practice located just around the corner from the family home, close enough to pop home for lunch on Saturdays, where he'd be spotted by his children from down the block and rushed to meet him to walk the rest of the way home. Joe loved his practice and working alongside his partner of nearly 40 years, Dr. Roger Cosgriff, providing Cleveland's west side with the most "marvelous" dental care – as characterized by Joe's spiritual director, Fr. Bob Welsh. Joe loved his patients, but most-cherished were his doctor-patient relationships with his own children, who would be sure to brush extra thoroughly the night before their appointments with "Dr. Dad."

Back in West Park, Joe cherished time spent with his family, friends, and neighbors, enjoying summer block parties, bowling with his league buddies at the local alley, gang-painting neighborhood homes, playing team softball, and attending the baseball, football, basketball, etc. games of his children. Joe's love for baseball extended from the junior leagues of his family to his hometown Cleveland Indians. Joe could always be counted on to be sporting a ballcap or t-shirt prominently displaying the beloved "Chief."

The Faust family often traveled on vacation, spending summers visiting state parks with neighboring families across Ohio, spending their time together on night hikes with park rangers, making owl calls, building campfires, and of course – fishing. Joe loved nothing more than spending time with his beloved family in the beauty of God's creation, even arranging for a priest to travel to the annual state park trip to offer outdoor Mass to all of the families involved.

In 1978, Joe and the family moved from their yellow house in West Park to their new home in North Olmsted. The extra space – though extra may be an overstatement – offered the family more room to be together, and offered Joe a beautiful, sprawling backyard, which he transformed into his personal oasis, complete with birdbaths and a myriad of feeders for the neighborhood birds and squirrels.

Joe's love for the outdoors extended beyond his backyard camp – in 1984, he founded the annual father and son golf outing, which brought Joe together with his growing sons, offering fun and togetherness and to revel in brotherly hijinks on courses all around Ohio – though only until the park ranger would regularly appear in his cart with some form of stern warning. Joe loved to plan the annual outing, often starting to plan courses and teams six months ahead of the actual outing, eventually expanding the outing to include his grandsons, becoming a multi-generational fraternal fellowship. Over the years, the guys explored some of Ohio's most challenging and beautiful courses, though their most memorable golf outing took place at Corolla in the Outer Banks, where the entire 36 member Faust family vacationed together in a single home (larger than the beloved home on West 161 st St.), in 2010 to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Joe and Mary Ann.

Joe's curiosity for the world God created took him on enriching and soul-fulfilling journeys with his family. From Easter vacations in Orlando and Disney World, enjoying theme parks from Cedar Point to King's Island, visiting family friends in the UK and Ireland, visiting his grandchildren in their new home cities, cruising to the Caribbean and Mediterranean, ferrying to the Lake Erie islands, catching a ball game at Wrigley Field or spring break training in Phoenix, all the way to attending Mass at St. Peter's Basilica at The Vatican – Joe not only saw the world, he cherished its great wonders and adventures with his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Back home in North Olmsted, Joe would be most often found sitting on the patio in his backyard oasis, listening to the Tribe on his trusty, old-school transistor radio, which he bought in bulk from DrugMart to ensure he always had one that worked. He watched over his backyard, with his Indians flag hanging from one of the mighty trees of his backyard forest. He loved to work in his yard, cutting the grass, raking leaves, and half-heartedly chasing the squirrels from his feeders. He enjoyed watching his dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren playing baseball, tag, and basketball in his yard – though he may or may have not put an end to rugby after a particularly muddy game that required considerable lawn rejuvenation. But after the hard work of the day was finished, Joe and Mary Ann would find themselves sitting across their dinner table at home, splitting boxes of Chinese takeout, but feeling just the same as if back on their first date at Peppy's Pizza. They would hark back to dinners at Chung's or Dante's pizza during the West Park days, and later on special occasions, they'd be found at the White Oaks or Wild Mango. When at the White Oaks just this week on Dad's birthday, his family called the restaurant and ordered a birthday cake for Dad, and when the hostess asked over the phone how she would locate them, she was clued in to look for the couple who were making eye contact and speaking to each other, just as they'd done for their 61 years of marriage. She returned to the phone and incredulously asked "does he have a cane?" and when that was confirmed, she stated it was easy to find them by that description. Mom and Dad were that couple, the ones talking with each other – a rarity in our modern disconnect of iPhones and other gadgets that Joe found fascinating, but distracting, to enjoying the life we have in front of ourselves. But that is who they were – that rare gem of a couple that after 61 years of marriage, were still truly in love and appreciated each moment they had together. As Mary Ann said, "it's hard to pick out one favorite moment with someone when you've been married for as long as we have." Perhaps that was their secret – that there was no favorite moment, that each moment they shared was a new favorite moment.

Speaking from the position of the legacy of lives that Mom and Dad brought into this world, Dad lived a life forged in hard work and commitment to his family, his faith, and innumerable friends he'd run into wherever he and Mom seemed to travel. He believed in and demonstrated selfless giving of himself to those he knew and loved, and to those who simply needed a helping hand. He waved to strangers, he disciplined with few, well-chosen words, and he loved unconditionally. Of course,

the adage "behind every great man, is a great woman," has never been more true. Dad knew he hit the jackpot when he married his 'child bride' as coined by Fr. Al Laubenthal. All of us becameaware of Dad's discrete ceremony of kissing Mom 3 times whenever they left or came back to each other, regardless of how harried or tired they might have been. Dad and Mom's love affair of 61 plus years was never ostentatious, but all who know them saw the mutual respect and love that they exuded, both simply and quietly. It is our privilege to carry on Dad's name, to fill his large shoes in caring for Mom, and to try to come close to living as selflessly and as honestly as he did.

We know that Dad is enjoying the life with Christ that he worked hard for, and earned, and that is the only consolation for being separated physically from his presence. Thank you Dadfor being the man you are, for showing us how to live a life of service, and for your easy manner in loving and caring for others with no conditions. Thank you for being our Dad.

The Funeral Mass will be livestreamed on the Chambers Funeral Homes Facebook page (link to our Facebook page below):

https://www.facebook.com/Chambers-Funeral-Homes-1560347080741913