CAPE remembers Dr. Joseph Langer and his family invites you to make a gift in his memory here
Dr. Joseph Langer, born 1930, passed away on January 28, 2024 after a long, adventurous and purposeful life. He came to Windsor, Ontario from Poland with his family at age three. As a teenager he worked in his father’s garage. He completed medical school at Western University, and after his residency in orthopedic surgery in Brooklyn, New York he had an accomplished and interesting medical career – setting up an orthopedic training program in Havana, Cuba in the 1960’s, a practice in Trenton and Belleville hospitals as well as a stint in Tofino, BC, until retiring from medicine at age 84. He was always ready to advocate on behalf of people in need of his knowledge and expertise.
Joe was as good with power tools in his workshop as in the operating room. He carried a scalpel and sutures in his wallet “just in case”. While being a surgeon was his official career, he always had some side hustle — innovative businesses and projects, always with a social justice and/or environmental bent, and always bringing new friends and family together in the process. His inventions and initiatives ranged from a system to recover the silver from old x-rays, manufacturing backyard composters using discarded pickle barrels and wind power, a teaching film on the surgical technique he developed for club foot, pioneering the use of hyperbaric oxygen chambers for treating gangrene, not to mention supervising the manufacture of a circus tent in Italy.
Joe loved a political debate, was very generous with people and had a mischievous sense of humour. He was fun to be around because he was intensely curious, a creative problem solver, interested in the unconventional, up for a physical challenge, and a voracious reader of non-fiction. A warm, affectionate person, he loved nothing more than to sit at the dinner table talking with family and friends.
He was a quality human being, whether as a son, brother, husband, father, uncle, grandfather, friend, colleague, or just someone you would meet in a café.
His loving wife Michelle Neyman, his children Julia (Kai Millyard), Stephen, Valerie (Nicole Rycroft) and Silvia (Michael Klug), their mother Shirley Langer and his grandchildren, nieces and nephews all miss his him very much and feel fortunate to have been part of his life.
A private graveside service will be held in the spring at Glenwood Cemetery. Family and friends will be notified of place, date and time of Joe’s Celebration of Life. In lieu of flowers please make a donation in memory to Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment here or call 647-952-4525. Condolences, your memories, and photos of Joe can be shared on the Memory Wall of his obituary.