JOSEPH A PIERCE, MD

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The foundational values that shaped the life of Joseph Alphonso Pierce, Jr. were developed and nurtured on the Black College and University campuses where he was raised. The cultural, academic and religious experiences gave meaning and direction to his life’s journey. Our family is grateful to God that Joe’s life spanned eighty-nine wonderful years.

Joseph (Joe) Alphonso Pierce, Jr. was born on August 13, 1935, in Marshall, Texas where his parents, Juanita George Pierce and Joseph A. Pierce, Sr., were young faculty members at Wiley College. Joe was their only child. It was the time of “the great debaters” and professors like Melvin B. Tolson, whose literature Joe would collect in adulthood. When Joe was three years old, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when his father accepted a teaching position in the graduate school of Atlanta University, his Alma Mater. Joe attended Oglethorpe Elementary School, where his mother also taught. He had fond memories of those years where he sold the popular Pittsburgh Courier and Ebony Magazines over a wide area of Atlanta on his bicycle. In Atlanta, Joe established life-long friends, made lasting memories, and was influenced by significant role models in this African American academic mecca.

When he was 13 years old, his mother and father, having both earned their doctorate degrees at NYU in 1945 and Michigan in 1938, respectively, accepted positions at the newly opened Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. Upon earning his doctorate in Mathematics, Joe’s father became the fifth African American at that time to do so. Joe enrolled in Jack Yates High School, and throughout his life, he boasted of the joy and pride he felt in being a Yates alumnus. He was especially proud of the superlative preparation of his teachers and the high-level academic competition of his peers. It was at Yates that Joe won two state championships in tennis doubles and in 1952 graduated ranked fourth academically in his class. During the summers of college and early medical school years, Joe worked as a lifeguard at the Emancipation Park swimming pool. He thoroughly enjoyed this job because he was working alongside his dear friends Ed Jones and James Teal. Joe graduated from Texas Southern University in 1957 with a major in Chemistry and minors in Mathematics and Biology.

In 1961, Joe earned a medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the nation’s oldest and largest historically Black academic health centers. After interning at Hubbard Hospital, also in Nashville, he entered the United States Army Medical Corps. Following one year in Korea and several months at Fort Ord, California, he was transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.

On March 1, 1964, Joe married Aaronetta Hamilton in Nashville, Tennessee at St. Luke CME Church. As newlyweds, they moved to San Antonio where Joe completed a residency in Anesthesiology at Brooke General Hospital at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, and Aaronetta taught at Riley Junior High School in the San Antonio Independent School District. They enjoyed living in San Antonio and made many new friends. Their union was blessed with two sons, Joseph Aaron Pierce who was born in 1969 at the 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany and Michael Arthur Pierce who was born in 1972 in San Antonio, Texas.

In 1967, the United States Army gave Major Pierce a military assignment to one of the largest military hospitals in Europe. For three years in Germany, he served as chief of the Anesthesia and Operative Services at 2nd General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and during that time, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. While there, he and Aaronetta travelled extensively throughout Europe, learning more about the culture and history of many countries. Joe particularly enjoyed visiting the great European museums and during that time he developed a lifelong appreciation for the visual arts.

In 1970, upon returning to the United States, Joe and Aaronetta chose to make San Antonio their home. Joe began a private practice as an anesthesiologist and worked very hard for 40 years. During those years, he served many patients and worked with a cadre of medical professionals who became dear friends. He worked in numerous local and national general medical organizations and the local and national Anesthesiology medical societies. He was one of five charter members of the C.A. Whittier Medical Society, an affiliate of the National Medical Association. He traveled to medical meetings across the country and had a favorite meeting in Los Angeles where he and dear friend, fellow Anesthesiologist, Dr. William Hadnott, always managed to take their golf clubs.

Joe nurtured his fervor for the visual art of African Americans as well as for books by African American authors. After seeing an exhibit by John Biggers at the Institute of Texan Cultures in the 1970’s, he traveled to Houston and passed several hours listening to and learning from Dr. John Biggers, the founding chair of the Art Department at Texas Southern University. Dr. Biggers was so proud to see this young man whom he had watched growing up on the campus develop an interest in the visual arts. During that visit, Joe purchased four original drawings by John Biggers and several books that Dr. Biggers had authored. Thus, the Pierce collection of art and books by African Americans was born.

Joe continued to collect rare and out-of-print books, many of which were signed, for the remainder of his life. He ultimately amassed a collection of almost six thousand books. In 1984, he, Aaronetta and others founded the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society, and Joe also served as a board member of the African American Museum of Art and Culture in Dallas, Texas. His love of art and books was shared by Aaronetta and their sons. It enriched their lives immeasurably and gave major direction to their work. They created precious friendships with Maya Angelou, Alex Haley, and Joe’s mother’s Fisk University classmate and American historian, John Hope Franklin, and more.

Joe’s greatest treasures were his sons. He loved them wholeheartedly and unconditionally, and he was very proud of them. He was devoted to them and was a monumental example for them. He shared his respect for our cultural legacy with them. Joe took them on numerous trips from Oregon to New York and from Nebraska to Florida as they pursued basketball and track and field competitions. They also enjoyed family trips and especially trips to the National Medical Association conventions, which opened the door for his sons to meet life-long friends from all across the country. Joe admired their academic and athletic accomplishments. He smiled with great respect when his son Joe graduated with a finance degree from Georgetown University as a varsity Track and field athlete and followed with joint graduate degrees, an MBA and JD from the Wharton School and Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. Michael followed a few years later, and Joe beamed with pride as Michael earned an undergraduate business degree in Marketing from Morehouse College and an MBA from Clark Atlanta University.

Joe had so many interests and recognitions during his lifetime. For example, for thirteen years, Joe was an investor in the San Antonio Spurs NBA Team. Joe and three other African American friends, Dr. James Hadnott, Dr. William Hadnott and Dr. Robert Hilliard likely became, without fanfare, the first African Americans to own a part of a major professional sports franchise in 1974. Spurs games were a high priority for the entire group of families.

In 1990, Joe and Aaronetta created Premier Artworks, Inc. to offer for sale art and books by African Americans. Joe also was a member of the Lone Star Chapter of Stein Collectors International. Joe greatly admired the design artistry as well as the biographical and historic significance of the stein manufacturers. He collected numerous porcelain, glass, and pewter steins.

In 1988, Joe was a charter member of Gamma Phi Boule of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, having been inducted into Delta Theta Chapter in 1955 when he was a student at TSU. In 2008, he was inducted into the Prairie View Interscholastic League Coaches Association Hall of Fame (PVILCA) for his high school tennis accomplishments. In 2011, he was honored as a golden son (fifty-year graduate) from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2018, he was inducted into “History Makers”, a national archive of African American leaders. He was also interviewed for the San Antonio Library Foundation Families of San Antonio archives.

Joe was the ultimate sports fan. He was known to even attend junior high school track meets, especially if he had read about an outstanding athlete or if a friend’s son or daughter was competing. He enjoyed museums, reading, antiquing, golf and jazz. He rarely missed attending a Texas Relays or the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials. Through the years, he often attended conventions of the African American Museums Association and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Joe was very proud of his cultural heritage, and he did all he could to preserve and promote it.

Joe’s small nuclear family was blessed when the Bethel family joined his upon the marriage of his son, Joe, to Kama Bethel Pierce, Esq. in 1994. Kama’s parents, Rev. Dr. Leonard Bethel and Veronica Bethel, are both retired college educators who share the Pierce family’s civic, cultural, and academic commitment. Joe celebrated with joy and pride the births of his three grandchildren and became a classic “pied piper” communicating their accomplishments and growth, including each grandchild’s college graduation.

Joe was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Aaronetta; sons Michael and Joseph; daughter-in-law Kama; grandchildren, Marco, Julian and Jasmine; sister in-law, Sylvia Hamilton Thomas; nephew, Eirik Collins; cousin, Dr. Brenda Elaine Jones; godson, John Elihue Codwell III; goddaughter, Joy Hadnott Lewis; and a host of dear friends.