Wheatley, Joseph
WHEATLEY, Dr. Joseph
On August 27, 2022, Joseph Kevin Wheatley of Bodega Bay, California, passed peacefully, surrounded by his family and blanketed with love. He will be dearly missed by them, his family and friends on both coasts, former patients and colleagues, and neighbors in the small northern California town he called home.
Born on January 5, 1946 to Irish immigrant parents, Joe grew up in West Harlem. His childhood was quintessentially Irish Catholic: five siblings, Sunday service as an altar boy, and days and nights learning life on the streets of New York. Joe always imagined a bigger world than 135th Street, and used education as a ladder to a better life.
One night in 1969, Joe and a student nurse named Anne Foody hit it off at a "sock hop" dance in Manhattan. They spent hours that evening riding the Staten Island Ferry back and forth, talking and learning about each other. The chance meeting kicked off 52 years of love-filled adventures that included summers sleeping in rental cars on backroads in Europe, avoiding sunburns at the beach with their boys, and enjoying free-wheeling drives in and around Sonoma County. He loved reading Thomas' writing and watching Joseph and his wife, Kara, become parents.
After a few years as an engineer at NASA and Exxon, Joe began a 46-year career as a urologist and surgeon. Medicine fascinated him and he gravitated to urology for its complex and challenging nature and the opportunity to help and heal. Colleagues praised his skill and patients appreciated his gentle bedside manner. He completed his residency at Emory University in Atlanta, where he and Anne started building a family. Work took the Wheatleys to Marietta, and in 2016 Joe and Anne began a much-deserved retirement in Bodega Bay.
He relished finding humor in everyday life and loved adding color to the worlds of loved ones and strangers. (See, for example, his tongue-in-cheek "C-ME-2P" license plates that were featured in Atlanta newspapers). In 2005, Joe embraced recovery and shared wisdom in 12-step meetings in almost every city he visited.
He is survived by Anne; his sons, Joseph Jr. and Thomas; daughter-in-law Kara; granddaughters, Eleanor and Caroline; brother, Patrick ("Buddy"); sisters-in-law, Joanne, Margie, and Mary Miller; brother-in-law, James O'Donnell ("Riley"); cousin, John O'Rourke; many nieces and nephews; and enormous cat, Sparrow. He is predeceased by his parents, Patrick and Catherine Wheatley; brother, Walter; and sisters, Anna, Loretta, and Catherine ("Casey"); and brother-in-law, Jerry.
Joe loved Bodega Bay. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to Waves of Compassion, a nonprofit Joe admired for its efforts to help the coastal community.
