Joseph Halperin

Joseph Halperin passed away on November 10, 2025 at age 83 after a heroic fight against pancreatic cancer. He died peacefully with his wife of 63 years, Lynn, by his side. After a career spent caring for cancer patients (over 10,000 in his estimate) he faced the disease and his mortality with wisdom and compassion.

Joe was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, the eldest of Elsie (Brodsky) and Leon Halperin's three sons. The boys -- Joey, Mark, and Sandy -- worked in their father's small drugstore as soda jerks. Joe was a high school swimming star and the first in the family to go to college. He met Lynn (Harrison) at American International College in Springfield as they were standing in line, in alphabetical order, to register for classes. It was her freshman year, and he was a sophomore. Their connection was immediate, passionate, and grew into a lifelong partnership.

A determined and hardworking student, Joe put himself through Boston University School of Medicine, graduating in 1967. As newlyweds, Joe and Lynn moved into public housing in Roxbury, where their son Jon was born; they believed it was important to be part of the Civil Rights Movement and work to try to integrate Boston at a time of great racial unrest and injustice in the city.

Joe completed his residency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where his daughter, Wendy, was born. In 1970, he was drafted into the U.S. Navy's Public Health Service during the Vietnam War. Stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he worked as a prison doctor at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth.

After his military service, Joe and Lynn moved to Marblehead, Massachusetts, where he began a more than two-decade career as an oncologist at Salem Hospital. From 1973 to 1995, he was known for his thoughtful, attentive care of patients and for his calm presence during some of the most difficult moments families could face. He also raised tens of millions of dollars for care of cancer patients in the North Shore of Boston.

Outside of medicine, Joe centered his life around his family. Many of his happiest years were spent at the tiny family cabin in Carrabassett Valley Maine, where he found joy in cross-country skiing, fly fishing, and getting lost in the woods. After a long and demanding week at the hospital, the five-hour drive north became his transition into rest, so much so that his family joked about his Maine accent emerging as they approached the state line. Time at the cabin was simple and close: no TV, just books, the radio, and board games. When not in Maine, weekends were filled with family bike rides, museum visits, dinner parties with friends, and trips into Boston for foreign films. These moments of togetherness were at the heart of who Joe was.

Every morning, for more than 50 years, Joe and Lynn woke up at 5 am. He would put a pot of oatmeal on simmer and together they went to the local swimming pool. He would swim a mile; she would swim a half mile. They would make it back in time for breakfast. Only he enjoyed the oatmeal which he would eat for breakfast and then again between two pieces of bread for lunch.

Once their kids went to college, Joe and Lynn left Marblehead and began exploring the country. They lived in more than a dozen places, from Greensboro, North Carolina to Oakland, California; from Kirkland, Washington to White Plains, New York. In every place they moved, they became part of the community and made deep friendships.

Joe searched for creative expression outside of medicine. First, he became a skilled furniture maker, learning from Lynn's father, Charles. His pieces are beloved objects in the homes of dozens of friends in the many places Joe and Lynn lived.

His painting journey began without premeditation 25 years ago. He was in his basement on a late Sunday afternoon and picked up a wall brush, an old floorboard, and a can of house paint and painted a landscape of a place that only existed in his imagination: a strange building of near-infinite windows on a riverbank. The making of that painting was a joyful experience. Over the next decade, he made nearly a painting a day. When he retired from his medical practice, he became an audit student in the Art Practice Program at the University of California, Berkeley. In appreciation for the opportunity to audit classes, he built the program art tables and storage units.

For the past two dozen years, Halperin was a full-time painter. Hundreds of his paintings are hanging in Johns Hopkins Hospital waiting rooms and other nonprofit health organizations as well as in private collections in Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, Toronto, and Naples, Florida. You can see his work at joehalperinart.com.

Creativity had always been central to Joe and Lynn's life together. In every place they lived, until the last few years, they shared a studio where Joe painted and Lynn worked with ceramics. After retirement, they went to the studio every day. Even when Lynn could no longer create art herself due to Alzheimer's, being in that space together remained a cherished ritual.

Joe took great pride in seeing his creative spirit carried forward by his children.

His son is a three-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker. Jon converted his garage into an art studio for Joe, where Joe spent his final years creating each day. After the cancer diagnosis, Jon and Joe spent each morning together teaching themselves how to build furniture with hand tools, beginning with a simple packing box and working their way up to a 400-pound workbench. This was Joe's final wood project. It is an heirloom object and will last for generations.

His daughter, Wendy, worked for more than 30 years as a social worker before embracing her own artistic path as a photographer. For her 50th birthday, Joe and Lynn gave her a digital camera. It mattered deeply to Joe that Wendy would have something as fulfilling and absorbing as his own art to carry her into retirement.

In his final days, Joe demonstrated once again the depth of his care for Lynn. Though it meant giving up his own independence, he chose to move with her into a memory care unit so she could settle into a new environment with him still by her side. Even at the end, his instinct was to protect and support the people he loved.

Joe is survived by his wife and children; his daughter-in-law Felicia Wong; his son-in-law Matthew Amster; his grandchildren, Sasha Halperin, Benjamin Halperin, Linden Amster, and Sky Amster; his brothers, Mark Halperin and Alexander Halperin; and his sister-in-law, Kathy Fox.

A memorial celebration of Joe Halperin's life will be announced later this year.

In lieu of flowers, please feel free to make a donation in his name to Waldo's and Company, the non-profit artist community space in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that Wendy runs, which was especially close to Joe's heart. He believed deeply in its mission of making creativity accessible to everyone. https://www.waldosandco.com/donate