Joseph Glenn Jr.

June 23, 1947 – Beloved Father, Veteran, Builder, Son of God Joseph Glenn entered this world on June 23, 1947, in Los Angeles, California — the firstborn son of Rosie Lee Edwards Glenn and Joe Glenn, and from the very beginning, a soul who carried

June 23, 1947 – Beloved Father, Veteran, Builder, Son of God

Joseph Glenn entered this world on June 23, 1947, in Los Angeles, California — the firstborn son of Rosie Lee Edwards Glenn and Joe Glenn, and from the very beginning, a soul who carried more than most people will ever know.

He graduated from Los Angeles High School before answering a call that would mark him forever: in August of 1966, at just seventeen years old, Joseph entered the United States Marine Corps. He served honorably through September of 1969, earning the M-14 Marksman designation, the Combat Ribbon, the Vietnamese Service Medal, the Vietnamese Campaign Medal, the National Defense Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. He came home changed, as all men do who have looked death in the eye and chosen to keep living. What he carried from that war was heavy and largely unseen — but he carried it, and he kept moving.

Upon returning to civilian life, Joseph pursued his mind as fiercely as he had pursued survival. He attended Pierce College and went on to earn an Associate Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Northrop Institute of Technology — a quiet testament to how far a brilliant mind can travel when it refuses to be told its limits. He later worked for the LA County Department of Social Services as a security guard and built a long career as a technician with Pacific Bell Telephone Company.

It was in the fullness of life that he met Rosalind — the love of his life — and together they built a family. Four children: Tamera Cruz (Salvador), Joseph M. Glenn (Jovan), Lea M. De La Rosa (Erick), and Kara E. Glenn. He loved family gatherings, holidays, and especially his mother’s cooking. He was a Dodgers man. A Lakers man. A man who could build and fix just about anything with his hands — masonry, plumbing, landscaping, electrical — because he understood that the truest form of love is showing up and making things work.

His grandchildren — Justin, Alaric, Cristian, Caleb, Jocelyn, Ezra, Gianna, Jonae, and his great grandchild Jaidn— carry his gifts forward, whether they know it yet or not. The talent in this bloodline did not appear from nowhere. It was seeded.

Joseph’s relationship with God was complicated — as it often is for those who have witnessed the worst that this world can offer, who have fought in jungles and returned to a country that did not fully receive them, who carried wounds passed down long before they were born. He did not always walk in the light the way the church might have wanted. But God does not require a perfect walk to know a soul. And this family knows — with a knowing that goes deeper than doctrine, deeper than words — that Joseph Glenn is with God now. Not because he earned it through perfection. Because grace is not earned. Because at the end, the soul returns to its source. And his source was always Love, even when he did not know how to reach it from the inside.

He certainly will be missed. Not for who he was on his hardest days, but for the glimmers — the moments when his soul was fully present and you could see clearly the man he was always meant to become. Those glimmers were real. They were him, too.

He has not left. He has simply moved beyond the veil. And the love — it was never only human love. It was always a soul covenant. Those do not end when the body does. They complete. They fulfill. They continue in a form that is no longer limited by pain.

Rest, Joseph. You made it home.