Dr. Joseph Boyles Dudley died in Winston-Salem, NC on Monday, November 25, 2019. He was 87 years old. Joe was born in Winston-Salem to Guy Rucker Dudley and Ruth Estelle Boyles Dudley on December 3, 1931.
He is survived by his wife of 32 years, Mary McCabe Dudley, and by his daughters Jane Portman (Rob), Dolly Dudley and Sally Dudley. He was proud to be the stepfather of Jim Galloway (Camille) and Scottie Neill (David) and the father-in-law of Steve Childs. He is also survived by his sister, Jane Dudley Bremer Smith (Dee).
Together, Mary and Joe have 13 grandchildren: Daniel and David (Andrea) Childs; Joseph Dudley “Jed” (Sara), Will, and Sally Portman; Walker and Grace Thompson; McCabe Galloway (Kiernan Heine) and Gray Galloway; Mary Scott Neill Rawlins (Campbell), Betsy, Lydia and Rob Neill; and 2 great-grandchildren, Parker and Natalie Childs.
Joe was predeceased by his brother, Guy Rucker Dudley Jr., by his daughter Nilla Dudley Childs, and by his former wife, Binney Putnam Dudley.
Joe attended Wiley Elementary School and R.J. Reynolds High School, where he was on the varsity tennis and basketball teams. His basketball team won the North Carolina state championship, a first for R.J.R. Joe attended Davidson College, where he completed his B.S. pre-medical degree.
He played basketball and tennis and earned the Peters Award, as the outstanding athlete of the year. He was the starting center and high scorer on the Davidson basketball team in 1952, when they beat UNC-Chapel Hill. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1957, then interned at Bryn Mawr Hospital.
Joe served in the United States Air Force as the pathologist at the 3750th hospital at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX. He completed his pathology training at Milwaukee County Hospital before returning to Winston-Salem to join the faculty at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, where he worked for 2 years before moving to the newly-completed Forsyth Memorial Hospital, where he remained for the next 36 years.
He became Chairman of the Department of Pathology and Director of the blood bank. There he managed the more than 200 technicians who worked in the fields of histology, hematology, chemistry, blood banking, microbiology, molecular medicine and other areas. He was an inspector for the American Association of Blood Banks in North Carolina. He also served as President of the Forsyth Memorial Hospital staff and of the North Carolina Society of Pathologists.
Joe was active in the community, serving as chairman of the board of Winston-Salem Tennis, the Salvation Army, and Forsyth Country Day School. He was on the board of the YMCA, Industries for the Blind, Red Cross, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Piedmont Health System Agency, Old Town Club, Northwestern, and First Union Bank. He was in the 1985-86 class of Leadership Winston-Salem. He was a founding member of the Stratford Rotary Club.
Joe was a voracious reader and a lifelong frequent visitor to and supporter of the Forsyth County Public Library. A reading room at the main location is named in honor of Joe and Mary.
He was an accomplished athlete his entire life. He bicycled daily and also enjoyed roller blading, golf, platform tennis, kayaking, windsurfing, and bocce. He was a tournament tennis player who won eight senior titles. Joe was also a licensed private pilot. He enjoyed traveling and adventure.
As a teenager, Joe worked in the South Dakota wheat fields. Later in life he climbed the ruins at Chichen Itza, played golf in the Falkland Islands, swam in the Antarctic Ocean, bicycled 400 miles in England and studied Shakespeare at Oxford University.
With his equally adventurous wife, Mary, he traveled to the jungles of Borneo and slept in native longhouses. They rode camels in Egypt and slept in the Sahara Desert. They scaled Mount Ararat, flew to the Juan Fernandez Islands, 400 miles off the coast of Chile, and went in winter to the Arctic Circle to view the Aurora Borealis.
The Forsyth County Public Library is suggested for memorial gifts.
A visitation with the family will be held at the Forsyth County Central Library, 660 W. 5th Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101 on Sunday, December 1 from 4:00-6:00pm. The funeral service will be at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Monday, December 2, 2019, at 2:00pm. Burial is private.
Condolences may be made online at www.salemfh.com. Salem Funeral & Cremation Service 120 S. Main St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101