RIDGEFIELD, Conn. – Joel Limoncelli, born in June of 1938, is both my grandfather and a man with tremendous life experience throughout his 87 years on this planet. The son of a jewelry salesman, Joel was born and raised in Elmira, a small town in upstate New York where the Limoncelli family has roots dating back to its immigration to the United States in 1912.
After attending Catholic school in Elmira and working briefly at a factory that produced industrial machine parts following graduation, Joel made a pivotal decision that would not only lead to two subsequent generations of Limoncellis but also the events that have shaped his children and grandchildren into the people they are today.
In October of 1957, Joel enlisted in the United States Navy as a hospital corpsman and pharmacy technician. He spent six months in Chicago for bootcamp and specialty school before orders brought him to Long Island, New York.
Joel has always loved golf, which he grew up playing with his father and ultimately led to his first job as a caddy at the Mark Twain golf course in Elmira and later to his position as captain of his high school golf team. Importantly, Joel brought his golf clubs to Long Island after school and bootcamp so he had something to do in his spare time. He ended up competing in the All-Navy golf tournament during his time in Long Island, advancing as far as the second round.
Perhaps even more importantly, Joel befriended three Naval Officers through golfing on Long Island, and through them he met my grandmother, Eileen, who worked for one of the officers at the Naval Hospital in the area. Obviously, without my grandparents meeting my cousins and I wouldn’t exist, but to me the most important impact of Joel’s experience is how he pursued his interests with curiosity and passion and was rewarded in unexpected ways.
By pursuing his interest in pharmacy Joel found his way into the Navy, and by nurturing his interest in golf he met his eventual bride. Through his story and by teaching his grandchildren to work hard at what we’re passionate about I feel inspired and influenced to stay diligent in my pursuit of success in the sports industry. Joel has done his best to positively impact his grandchildren, and apart from fond childhood memories and timeless wisdom, this lesson stands the most crucial of all in my eyes.
Joel went on to work as a pharmaceutical sales representative on Long Island after his Naval contract expired, which he rose to a senior hospital representative position and helped all four of his children go to college. In doing so my father, James, found a job he was good at in the financial industry and moved across the country to San Francisco, where he met my mother, Roshelle.
Straying from the decisions that created branches on the family tree for a moment, there’s one excerpt my grandfather shared with me that is equally important. In the fall of 1973, Joel had taken the family back to Elmira from Long Island to visit family. On the way back, they took a significant detour through Albany, New York to stop at Cooperstown and the Professional Baseball Hall of Fame.
My father, who was seven at the time, and his older brother were avid baseball fans and had never been to Cooperstown before. That visit helped spark a lifelong love of baseball for my father, which he ultimately passed down to me and is one of the key reasons I’m at Cronkite writing this column right now.
Reflecting on the stories Joel shared, it’s incredibly surreal to think about all these events are interconnected and, in some way, have impacted my generation of the family. Who would’ve thought I’d be attending journalism school in 2026 because my grandfather enlisted in the Navy in 1957?
