Moving to Mexico on impulse in the 1960s, Joseph Dunwoody Jr. fell in love with the country.
Though he spoke no Spanish at the time, Dunwoody quickly learned enough to appear as Johnny on “Lupita y Johnny,” a Mexican sitcom similar to “I Love Lucy.”
“He was teaching English to some of the people at the television station and they said, ‘You’re good looking! Let’s pair you with (Mexican actress) Skippy Casado,’ and he fell into it,” said his wife, Martha Tanner.
Though the role didn’t last long, Dunwoody’s love affair with Mexico never wanned.
“He lived in Mexico for five years, in Puebla, Mexico City, San Miguel and Monterrey,” his wife said. “He got his master’s and then the peso got devalued … he had to come back, he couldn’t make a living.”
Settling in San Antonio because of its strong Mexican influence and its proximity to the border, Dunwoody began teaching at San Antonio College in 1968 while continuing to visit Mexico whenever he could.
Local Channel
- Man+killed+by+police+after+stealing+bike%2C+riding+onto+Loop+410 Jacob Beltran
- Police: Drive-by gunman fires 30+ rounds into home, strikes man San Antonio Express-News
- Woman killed as firefighters battle flames for hours San Antonio Express-News
- SAPD: Man catches 2 suspect breaking into car on West Side, opens fire Caleb Downs
- Kawhi Leonard's Relationship with Spurs Is Just Fine, According to His Uncle Sports Illustrated
- Shots fired call near Alamo Heights prompts large police presence Fares Sabawi
- UTEP athlete, SA native snubbed @lamTre_/ Twitter
- Cold Case Unit, San Antonio Police Department San Antonio Police Department
- Sinkhole discovered on the West Side 21 Pro Video
- Timelapse shows icy cold front moving into San Antonio Courtesy AJ Pena
Dunwoody “was a natural teacher,” his wife said. “He loved SAC … thought those students were so important and special.
“He loved it,” she said.
Dunwoody died Jan. 11, just a day before his 84th birthday.
Raised in New York, Dunwoody attended the Amherst College from which he graduated in 1956.
Joining the Navy after graduation, Dunwoody was commissioned as an ensign and served on the destroyer USS Vogelgesang before becoming an English instructor at the Naval Preparatory School, his wife said.
After his discharge from the service, Dunwoody worked on his master’s degree at the University of Delaware, but moved to New York City, where he worked at a bookstore, before moving to Mexico.
“It was the 1960s where people … did things by the seat of their pants,” Tanner said.
He received his master’s in Spanish language and literature from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey while there.
He briefly returned to Mexico in the early 1980s as a visiting professor at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City.
Back in San Antonio, he met Tanner in February 2001. The couple married the following December.
Dunwoody soon introduced her to Mexico, driving there about four times a year.
An unabashed liberal, Dunwoody had a particular interest in women’s rights.
“He went to the women’s march last year,” Tanner said. “Then he went to New York for a march; he was really a women’s libber from the start.”
mheidbrink@express-news.net