Jose Alonso Sanchez Jr.

January 31, 1956 - July 19, 2025

Jose Alonso Sanchez Junior, often called "Joe” by family and friends, was born in Webb County, TX on January 31, 1956, to Antonia Paula Amaya and Jose Alonso Sanchez (Senior) as their first-born child. His other siblings were Raul Sanchez, Santiago “Jimmy” Sanchez, Ricardo Alberto Sanchez (Deceased), Rene Hugo Sanchez, Josephine Sanchez, and Laura Sanchez.

He lived his childhood life moving around from place to place, following his father’s military service stations and lived briefly in cities like Aurora, Colorado, El Paso, Texas, Libya, Africa, and San Antonio, Texas.

Joe helped to raise his younger sister, Laura Sanchez as best he could under the newly single-parent household, until moving out to college.

Joe attended San Antonio Junior College (1974 -19 76) for Business Accounting, University of Texas at San Antonio (1976 -1979) for Business IT, and Austin Community College (1992 -1996) for Digital electronics/Network Administration; Computer Science language C/C ++.

Joe married young, in the backyard of his bride’s parents’ house on August 17, 1979. His father wanted him to marry a well-off woman, but Joe decided to marry the woman he loved, Maria “Mary” Elena Cantu. Together, they bought a house in Austin on Hawkshead drive, where the couple lived most of their adult lives. Joe would drive to San Antonio to visit his mother for holidays and ‘just because’ throughout his adult life while based in Austin.

Joe and Mary wanted to have children and tried several times. Because Mary had lupus, carrying a pregnancy was difficult. The couple did have one child on November 8, 1983, Mark Alexander Sanchez, who spent very little time on this earth. The baby died on November 13, 1983, and was laid to rest at Cook-Walden / Capital Parks Funeral Home & Cemetery (Section J). He loved his child dearly and said the experience changed his life perspective forever.

As Catholics, Joe and Mary were able to be God-parents to: Kimberly Bemrich (niece), Kelly Cantu (niece), and Ginger Esperanza Castro (deceased).

Joe hosted bar-b-ques, dinners, gaming nights, at his house for family and friends, even entertaining nieces like Kimberly Bemrich or Amanda Sanchez when they needed a place to stay in Austin. Joe was even hosting a Superbowl watching party for his brother, Rene Sanchez, and family when we all discovered the meaning of the phrase, “wardrobe malfunction,” while Janet Jackson did her half time performance.

Joe also stayed in touch with extended family in Mexico, Laredo, and Corpus Christi and considered himself the patriarch of the family, having a wealth of family history information in his head.

Professionally, Joe worked as a programmer for various Texas state entities. He was one of the first programmers to code directly onto a computer chip. He took programming classes like Fortran for fun and blew the minds of the other students who could barely grasp the coding concepts. His most used language was C++. Joe was friends with Raza Laeeq, who Joe called, “Grasshopper,” and was with him when Joe bought his dream corvette. Joe even had some interest in continuing to freelance programming on bids with niece Ellice Sanchez to clients just for fun.

Joe had a big heart and took in various boys and young men under his wing. Joe and Mary hosted foreign exchange students, one being Patryk Goscianski, who Joe also mentored professionally after college. Joe also housed and took care of Chase Robinson as a teen and young adult. Joe also enjoyed the company of Chase’s son, Jasper, who helped Joe to babysit.

Joe also joined in family vacations with his brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephew to places life Florida and Medina Lake trips. He also hosted family that visited Austin. Joe called in sick to work and took Rene & family to took day trip to Mount Bonnell, and on other occasions Colorado Bend State Park and McKinney Falls. Joe also vacationed solo to the Manilla, Philippines. He also vacationed with his wife on ski trips to the rocky mountains.

As his brother and sister’s mostly grew apart, he appreciated and reciprocated the gesture to keep in touch with his brother, Rene Sanchez, who reached out to him for connection through-out his adult life.

One of the remarkable moments of his life was in the very early morning hours of January 31, 2023, around 1am. There was a cold snap spread across south Texas and blanketing Austin particularly bad. The power was out in the city, so having just cleaned the chimney professionally, Joe started a fire to keep Mary warm during the night. Around 1am, Joe heard Mary downstairs shout, “smoke” from his upstairs bed. His ears were keen on hearing her voice and her woke up to very thick smoke. He could barely breathe or think, and in the darkness, made his way to the upstairs deck intuitively followed by dog Bubbie, where he shimmied down to the ground level. Joe without a thought for himself, had to go back into the fire to rescue his wife. His lungs were exhausted, but he dragged her out of the fire, saving both of their lives. As soon as they were both safe outside, he had a stroke, collapsed, and was transported to Brooks Army Medical Center where he made his slow recovery. Firefighters were stunned that he would voluntarily go back into the fire, but for Joe, he could not live with himself if he did not try to save his wife. Joe did lose one puppy to the fire, which broke his heart. Joe was released from the hospital after some weeks. He was helped by niece Ellice Sanchez during his doctor ordered monitoring period; she also helped him to request new driver’s licenses, buy new clothes, and get back on his feet. Joe was stubborn though. His doctors wanted him to rest and stay off his feet, especially while his balance was weak, but he began doing neighborhood walks, washing dishes, and even slipped trying to help install a shower curtain (though, he slipped because of his socks on the bathtub gloss, not due to balance issues). He had no time or desire to rest too much and not contribute.

It took exactly two years to get his Hawkshead house insurance pay-out, which was considered a total loss. He decided to buy a subterranean house near Grapeland, TX; that house became a passion, fixer-upper project for him. He said he could not believe that someone who started off as such a poor boy, could enough up with such a magnificent house and land.

Even after the fire, and during the 2-year insurance evaluation period, Joe continued to coach children in the art and sport of tennis. He believed treating children with the same respect as adults got the best results out of them.

While the Grapeland house was under re-construction, Joe moved in with his mother in San Antonio with his wife. Joe’s wife died just 2 weeks after moving temporarily to San Antonio, on February 14, 2025. Joe’s mother took a fall while preparing for Mary’s funeral, so Joe had to juggle taking care of his mother in the hospital and host a funeral for his wife.

Joe wanted to prepare his mother’s house for her return from the hospital, so he started off with the simple goal of wanting to clear a clogged drained. Purchased tools and plumbers later, he found the drain clog was sourced from a broken pipe and shifted house foundation, so Joe managed to fix both before his mother came back come. This is the construction project that introduced Joe to his other friend, Ismael Partida. After that point, Joe and Ismael often spent weekends working on his house near Grapeland, Texas.

Joe and niece, Ellice Sanchez worked to do a lot of projects around this mother’s house. Together they did laborious things like clip many tree branches, cleaned her house, de-contaminate from bed bugs, and shampooed her carpet. Joe was around to assist his mother with caregiving and company, another other unsung living chores like planting grass seed, mowing the lawn and fixing electrical outlines. Joe also assisted his mother in the recent loss of her dog Pebbles. Joe also took the time to help Ellice by fixing her fence gate and weed whacker.

In his time living between San Antonio and Grapeland, Joe found a nice routine of playing golf with his brother, Santiago “Jimmy” Sanchez who he was able to re-connect with.

Joe kept active socially, even meeting with his close tennis friends Roy Cobb and Joe Linskey for lunch just before the end of his life.

In what turned out to be his final days, Joe wanted to help his grand-nephew, Jacob Solis Junior, and niece Victoria Bemrich after having some legal trouble; it did not matter that the generation difference was a bit distant, he believed “family is family” and was fiercely loyal to anyone in his clan. Helping Jacob was one of the last things written in his notebook.

Joe took superb care of his health, exercising and eating a healthy diet with no salt, sugar, or other non-nutritious food. He enjoyed almonds, pistachios, homemade beat juice, cold black tea, limeade, asparagus, and steak. With his mom aged 89, and father aged 90 upon Joe’s death, and healthy lifestyle, there is no telling how long Joe could have lived.

On July 11, 2025, Joe and Ismael were driving to his Grapeland property to continue the house renovation work, when at about 6:16am near Old Dime Box, his truck collided with an 18-wheeler. He had numerous catastrophic injuries and remained in a coma until being removed from life support, succumbing to the injuries, and dying at St. David’s South Hospital on July 19, 2025, amongst close family and friends.

Per his stated wishes, the ashes of his wife, Mary Sanchez, will be placed in his casket , and Joe will be buried beside his son, Mark Alexander Sanchez.

Joe is deeply loved and missed by many.

Catholic Mass

There will be a mass held in Joe’s honor at St. Vincent De Paul Church with a potluck to follow at the parish hall.

Location

St. Vincent De Paul Church

4222 SW Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78227

Date

Thursday July 31st, 2025 at 11 am

A graveside service for Jose will be held Friday, August 1, 2025 at 1:00 PM at Cook-Walden/Capital Parks Cemetery, 14501 North Interstate 35, Pflugerville, Texas 78660.