3
trees
planted in memory of Joseph J. Colombara
Obituary for Joseph J. Colombara
Joseph John Colombara, a nearly lifelong Collinsville resident, passed peacefully on Aug. 27, 2025.
Joe, born Oct. 16, 1927, was the son of Joseph and Fannie Colombara. He grew up in his family’s tavern on Lebanon Road. For the next nine decades, he would tell stories about the people who frequented their establishment, of pitching corkball for the older Italians, swimming in Canteen Creek, enjoying his mother’s cooking and scrounging up enough money to beat the heat for a show at Miner’s Theater.
He joined the U.S. Navy as World War II was winding down and served two years in the U.S.S. Abnaki’s engine room, obtaining the rank of Fireman First Class and earning the World War II victory medal, among others. After his service, he married Joan Jokerst and had three children, Gary, Tom and Linda. Joan succumbed to breast cancer in 1962, and Joe, a widower, took on the task of raising his three children with the help of family.
Joe would eventually ask for a date with Eleanor Mikalauski, a teacher at S.S. Peter and Paul School, where his children were enrolled. He often described the years courting Eleanor as the best of his life. The two married in 1966 and were inseparable for more than 50 years until Eleanor’s death in 2016. In Eleanor, Joe found a patient, kind and caring woman who became mother to his children, traveled with him, and never stopped making his favorite homecooked meals.
He worked for lumber yards all his life, retiring from Great Central in Alton. For years after, he could seemingly recall every lumber delivery he ever made, describing in detail the places, people and surroundings. It was not uncommon to hear a story start with “I delivered lumber there in 1976 …” His memory never failed him, and into his last days, he could hear a name from his past, and rattle off the names of that person’s parents, siblings, children and cousins, where they’d worked, gone to school and more.
Starting in the late 1980s, he gathered rosters from his time on the U.S.S. Abnaki and painstakingly searched for shipmates using telephone books on disks at the St. Louis Public Library. He organized the first reunions, connecting with people he’d not seen for decades, and renewing friendships that would last for decades. Later, he’d find hundreds of ship members from across the Abnaki’s time in service and enlarge the annual gatherings, traveling the country with Eleanor, and later his daughter Linda and son Tom.
After retiring, Joe spent years as a playground monitor at S.S. Peter and Paul School while Eleanor was still teaching. He loved interacting with the children and often brought spare sets of car keys with him, telling the children they were for the high-end sports cars he didn’t actually own. He’d hand them out on Fridays and let the children “borrow the Corvette,” collecting them back up on Monday. He could still tell you which kids from the 1990s could jump rope the best, who was a great soccer player and the jokes the kids told him.
He played golf most of his life, often with Gary and Tom. When he was 90, he hit his first and only hole in one. Later in the same round, he hit the ball in the water. When asked why he didn’t save it, he said that it was clearly a good ball and he thought he should keep hitting it.
Joe never met a stranger. On their daily trips to Schnucks, Eleanor would have to find Joe somewhere in the store and pry him away from conversations he’d started. He could be there for hours, talking with the store’s staff, who all knew him, friends he’d bump into, or strangers, who he would invariably find a connection to once he’d talked to them long enough.
A few years after Eleanor’s death, Joe moved into an assisted living facility in Troy, where he was a popular presence, being named king of the Valentine Dance one year and making friends with many residents and everyone on staff. Despite being limited by failing eyesight, he regularly took his scooter to the nearby park and made friends with those walking on the path.
A lifelong member of S.S. Peter and Paul Parish in Collinsville, Joe and Eleanor would get to church nearly an hour early for 7 a.m. Mass every week — ostensibly to say their prayers, but more likely to secure the best parking space on Johnson Street and to stake his claim to the fifth pew on the St. Joseph side, which everyone knew was their space.
An avid genealogist, Joe found records of Italian family members dating back several generations. He used his experience to help friends do the same, and he volunteered time in the genealogy room of the Collinsville Public Library.
An Italian through and through, Joe regularly made bagna cauda for special occasions and was proud that his name was one of the “famous Paisanos” on Collinsville’s Italian Fest T-Shirt.
Joe is predeceased by his father, Joseph Colombara, and mother, Fannie (nee Baima) Colombara, and a sister, Edith Beveridge, two wives, Joan M. (nee Jokerst) and Eleanor A. (nee Mikalauski), and his daughter, Linda Colombara-Buffo.
He is survived by two sons, Thomas (Cynthia) and Gary (Mary) Colombara, five grandchildren, Brian Wallheimer, Nikki (Grant) Kwon, Adrienne Colombara, Alexandra Colombara and Tyler Colombara, three great-grandchildren, Eleanor Wallheimer, Katherine Wallheimer and Charles Wallheimer, son-in-law, Bob Buffo and two nephews, Jim and Mike Wilson.
Joe was a member of the Collinsville VFW Post #5691 and the Collinsville American Legion Post #365.
Memorials may be made in the form of masses to S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Church.
Visitation will be held Friday, September 5, 2025 from 4:00 to 70 p.m. at the Allan & Ciuferi Funeral Home, 314 W. Main St., Collinsville, IL and from 9:30 until 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 6, 2025 at S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, 207 Vandalia, Collinsville, IL.
Funeral Mass will begin at 10:30 a. m. at the church with Father Michael Haag officiating.
Burial will follow at S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Cemetery, Collinsville, IL
To plant a tree in memory of Joseph J. Colombara, visit the Tribute Store.
Previous Events
Visitation
Friday
5
Sep
4:00 PM
- 7:00 PM
Allan & Ciuferi Funeral Home
314 West Main Street
Collinsville, IL 62234
Visitation
Saturday
6
Sep
9:30 AM
- 10:30 AM
S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Church
207 Vandalia
Collinsville , IL 62234
Service
Saturday
6
Sep
10:30 AM
S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Church
207 Vandalia
Collinsville , IL 62234
Cemetery Details
Location
S. S. Peter & Paul Catholic Cemetery
636 East Main Street
Collinsville , IL 62234
Memorial Contribution
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