ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
This painting of the late retired Judge Joseph Dever hangs in Lynn District Court’s First Session courtroom.
Joe Dever loved to smile.
If he spotted you walking down Essex Street past District Court, or inside the courthouse, he would bathe you in a happy radiance that filled his entire face for a few seconds. He might spend a minute or two joking about his job and yours or discuss some other quick topic, but when he parted ways, it was that smile that stuck with you.
Joe Dever loved people and, on Monday, the people he loved, the people who worked with him, admired and respected him, talked about his love for people and his love as a judge for treating people fairly.
Dever loved upholding the law and playing a key role in keeping the wheels of justice moving. His work on justice’s behalf did not end each workday when he took off his black robe and hung it up. Dever helped organize a reading group for women in trouble with the law and he read every book assigned to the women and attended discussion groups on each book.
He dedicated himself to Changing Lives Through Literature because he believed in the redemptive power of the written word. Dever knew that the truths of the human soul are captured by novelists and dropped like gems into great writing.
He believed in the truth and although he sought to uphold it as a core principle of his work in District Court’s First Session courtroom, he knew that anyone on any side of the law could pursue the truth and, in doing so, learn about themselves.
Read Joe Dever’s life like a book and you will understand that he saw the light of redemption in everyone. He gave so much time to Changing Lives because he understood that for all of us, facing the truth about ourselves is justice defined.
During his long life, Joe Dever the lawyer, Joe Dever the actor striding across community theater stages and Joe Dever the reader saw humanity in all of its tragic and comical glory.
It would have been an interesting and insightful conversation to sit down with him and hear his opinions on human nature because he saw it from so many different angles. As an actor, he stepped into the emotions of famous characters; as a reader he explored the conflicts gripping literary characters and, as a lawyer and, later, a judge he saw real people immersed in their own daunting battles.
How would have such a student of human nature summed all of us up? If you asked him that question, Joe Dever probably would not have said a word on the subject. He would have smiled for a few seconds and went on his way.
