Joseph F. Woodall, Jr., 1978 - 2019

Joseph F. Woodall, age 41, passed away peacefully on Nov. 23, 2019, after a long and difficult illness. Joe was born in Fairfield in 1978 and grew up in Vacaville. After graduating from Will C. Wood in 1996, he joined Local Union 378, Oakland Ironworkers, and worked first in rebar and then as a structural steel connector at a variety of jobs around the Bay Area – including San Francisco City Hall seismic retrofit, Golden Gate Bridge seismic retrofit phase I, Stanford University, Kaiser Geary Street Medical Office Building, and PacBell Park's left field (later AT&T Park and currently Oracle Park). He was also employed by AT Systems Sacramento as a money courier for several years, making the Sacramento-Redding run every day.

Joe's heritage was Native American on both sides of his family all the way back to the colonial era in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. He had a quick intelligence and an irreverent, sarcastic sense of humor. He loved nature and the outdoors and was an avid lifelong fisherman, fishing many of the waters of Northern California from Grizzly Island, Cache Slough, and Hastings Island in the Delta, Putah Creek and Lake Berryessa to the Sierras, Hat Creek and Burney Falls, and the Sacramento, Mokelumne, Feather, McCloud, and Merced Rivers, to the San Francisco Bay and ocean off Pt. Reyes and Bodega Bay. He loved fly fishing, fresh water and salt water fishing. His first keeper sturgeon from the Delta and a 40-pound halibut caught off Pt. Reyes were some of his favorite memories. He was a good tracker with an exceptionally keen sense of hearing. He had a lifelong love of reptiles and kept lizards, an iguana, and snakes as pets; he also helped with snake handling at the reptile shows at Pet Country as a young boy. He was too small to lift the giant pythons, but if someone put them up on his shoulders, he would happily walk around, show them to the audience and answer questions. He would regularly stop his truck to run and pick up snakes in the road and move them out of harm's way.

In 2005 Joe married his love, Vivian, with whom he shared his passions for fishing, hiking, nature, animals, birds and snakes, rock hunting, history, antique hunting, and collecting vintage fishing tackle. Some of the most beautiful times shared included: walking along the beach collecting treasures and watching the sandcrabs float out to feed and burrow back into the sand; watching thousands of snow geese and ducks filling the skies as they took wing at sunrise in the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge; and walking through a peach orchard on a hot August day picking ripe peaches as big as softballs.

Joe loved his dogs too, adopting a rescued miniature pinscher, Bo, and raising an English bulldog, Dusty, from a little puppy. Dusty became a celebrity at U.C. Davis when she survived a form of canine cancer that normally progresses rapidly and is 100% fatal. Both dogs passed away within two months of each other in 2016. Joe was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2011. As the illness progressed, complications arose and he was hospitalized several times; he struggled to enjoy the activities he loved, and he so looked forward to seeing his Dusty again. His heart held no fear and he only longed for peace at last from a life filled with heartache and challenges.

Joe is survived by his sisters Mary West, Juanita Fuller, Debrah Sanchez, and Barbara Woodall of Vacaville, nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and by his soulmate, Vivian Woodall of Sonoma. He did not want any services, and requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Cast for Kids Foundation (https://castforkids.org). His soul is free now, his spirit soars, and he lives forever in our hearts.