Joseph Francis Elm of Hampton Bays Dies June 6

Joseph Francis Elm of Hampton Bays died on June 6 with his wife and son by his side at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. He was 86.

Joseph —who always told everyone, “call me Joe” —was born in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to George and Catherine (McCusker) Elm. He was the second of four children.

He always claimed that the second child in a family was the “best adjusted” because he/she enters into a ready-made family unit and has never been the focus of all attention like the first child to arrive. According to his family, he was living proof of his theory: he was steady, calm, patient, kind and generous.

He set out at a young age to work hard and improve on his humble beginnings, and never begrudged anyone their good fortune. Elm graduated from Northeast Catholic High School for Boys in 1954, then served his country by joining the U.S. Air Force.

Although he became somewhat forgetful towards the end of his life, his family said, he never forgot the “brutally cold” winters of Limestone, Maine, where he was stationed during his time of military service.

Another clear memory he had until the end was that after attending La Salle University in Philadelphia (on the G.I. Bill) and graduating with a bachelor’s degree in marketing in 1962, he couldn’t immediately find a job. While working as a bartender at the Treadway Inn in Radnor, Pennsylvania, to support his young family from a first marriage, he was hired from behind the bar by a customer who offered Elm a position as a sales rep for TV Guide.

It was the start of an illustrious career in magazine publishing, which took Elm from TV Guide in Pennsylvania to Star Magazine in New York, where he became general manager and eventually vice president of Murdoch Magazines.

During his time with publisher Murdoch, he was instrumental in helping the company launch and/or acquire about a dozen magazines with titles like Soap Opera Weekly, Mirabella, Premiere, New Woman, Seventeen and Automobile. The company also acquired TV Guide, to which Elm returned — with a much loftier title.

At Star Magazine, he met his second wife, Joanna, who worked as news editor of the weekly publication.

The couple moved to Boca Raton, when Elm was offered the position of chairman of Globe Magazine, but subsequently returned to New York where he became executive vice president of Magazine Distributors Inc., then, president and CEO of Worldwide Media Service Inc.

Upon retirement, he became an owner/partner in a magazine/newspaper distribution company based in Long Island City. Former colleagues who heard of his passing last week described him as an “icon” and a “legend” in the magazine publishing industry.

Besides working hard, Elm loved to travel, and to socialize with friends and family, clients and employees, his family said. He was a born storyteller, they said, and he knew how to have fun. He lived life to the fullest: He loved skiing the double black diamond trails of Sunday River, Maine, and Copper Mountain, Colorado. He loved sailing and taught himself to sail on Barnegat Bay after reading a how-to book. He later enjoyed cruising in the Caribbean on the five-masted schooner, the Royal Clipper.

He and his wife travelled all over the U.S. and Europe, and particularly enjoyed gambling hotspots like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, the Bahamas and Monte Carlo, his family said.

In retirement, he moved with his wife and son to Hampton Bays, and every day tended to a beautiful backyard that became a blaze of color in the summer.

In the winters, he flew south to Palm Beach, where he enjoyed being a member of the Breakers Ocean Club, lunching every day at the Beach Club bar before napping by the pool. He was generous — to a fault — with his children, grandchildren, mother-in-law and even strangers, his family said.

When Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in 1992, Elm gathered up donations from all the employees of Globe Magazine, where he was working at the time, and asked the owner of the magazine to match the total donated, which he used to buy supplies; got a distributor friend to loan him a truck, loaded it up with diapers, formula and water and drove it himself to Homestead — the hardest-hit area in South Florida.

In her latest novel, published last year, Joanna Elm acknowledges her husband as “my rock, my No. 1 fan and my superpower.” She writes: “He has encouraged and supported me in everything I ever wanted to achieve. I couldn’t wish, or hope for — or even dream up — a better partner.”

He was predeceased by his sister, Mary Bauer and his brother James.

He is survived by Joanna, his wife of 36 years; their son Daniel (Adrienne); three children from a previous marriage, Sean, Pamela (Vic) and Joseph (Valerie); five grandchildren, Heather (Patrick), Trevor, Kiel, Shannon and Jack; one great-grandson, Noah; a brother, John (Marie); and many nieces and nephews.

After visitation for family at R.J. O’Shea Funeral Home in Hampton Bays, a private funeral Mass was held on June 10 at St. Rosalie’ Church in Hampton Bays — where he attended daily Mass — before burial at Good Ground Cemetery.