Joe Howard Giles died December 2nd in Austin, Texas at the age of 94. Joe was born May 26, 1926 in Dallas and grew up there in the hard years of the Great Depression. After he and his twin brother Jack graduated high school, they trained and served alongside each other in the Navy in World War II. They served on the USS Sarita which was the first US naval ship to sail into Tokyo harbor at the end of the war (before even the Missouri). Back in Dallas after the war, Joe met the love of his life, an RN named Irene Worcester, at a YMCA dance. They were wed August 24, 1947 in Irene's home town of Vernon, Connecticut. They moved to Lubbock where Joe attended Texas Tech on the GI Bill. He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950. By 1958 the couple had three children, Grady, Peggy and Carol and were living in the burgeoning city of Houston where Joe began imprinting his Professional Engineer stamp on projects all over town. In his career, Joe worked on schools, churches, hospitals, cement plants, oil refineries, pump stations, power plants and steel mills. He was especially proud of two projects; Dr. Michael DeBakey's operating room where the surgeon performed the first successful heart transplants in this country, and a gymnasium sized vacuum chamber for the Apollo program at NASA. Joe was a deacon and board member at First Christian Church in Houston. Joe and Irene enjoyed camping trips in East Texas and Arkansas and floating down the rapids at Camp Warnecke in New Braunfels. They moved to Austin in 2010 to be closer to their children.

He is predeceased by his parents, Henry Grady Giles and Vita Vineyard Giles; his brothers, Henry and Jack; his wife, Irene; and his daughter and granddaughter, Peggy and Jamie Kliesing.

Joe is survived by son and daughter-in-law, Grady and Charissa Giles; grandchildren, Tyler (and wife Lani) Giles and Katy (and husband Hector) Weir; and their respective 6 children, daughter and son-in-law, Carol and Dillon Pyron, son-in-law and grandson, Ray and Kevin Kliesing.

In lieu of flowers, donations to the Alzheimer's Association (alz.org) or the American Cancer Society (cancer.org) are suggested.

Private Family Graveside Service Thursday, December 10, 2020 at Woodlawn Garden of Memories, 1101 Antoine Drive, Houston, Texas 77055.

Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home