Service, generosity were among pharmacist's contributions to Greensburg community

Editor’s Note: This is part of a series about Westmoreland County residents who have been honored as Hometown Heroes.

Pharmacist John E. “Joe” Fishell worked 13 out of every 14 days at his Greensburg drug store and was on call on holidays.

“There were many times he was called out to get medicine from the pharmacy when somebody needed it,” said daughter Rebecca Walton of Greensburg. “He went above and beyond what might have been expected.

“He was very caring. If somebody came in to the drug store and wanted to talk to him, he was never too busy to come out to the front counter. He was involved with his customers. He would ask them about their kids.”

Because a local pediatrician had Sunday evening office hours, Fishell kept his store open then. The physician “would send all the people with sick children to the drug store,” said Kathryn Coleman of Ford City, another of the late Fishell’s daughters. “The drug store was always a busy place. Dad was a hard worker, committed to his community.”

That was a level of service and concern that came naturally to Fishell, who continued to work at his business until he suffered a stroke at age 71, the day before his death on March 24, 1995. The drug store closed the following year.

Fishell had completed his studies at the University of Pittsburgh College of Pharmacy only after a break to serve as an Air Force medic during the Korean War.

“He said he never liked guns because he saw what they could do,” Walton said of the war’s effect on her father, who achieved the rank of first lieutenant.

Still, that harsh wartime experience benefited many whose lives Fishell would later touch with his skills as a medic. That included a local hemophiliac chef, whose bleeding Fishell was able to stop when she suffered cuts, as well as victims of a vehicle wreck he happened upon.

Fishell began working at the Thomas Drug Store, on Pennsylvania Avenue, when he was in high school. Working his way up from initial roles including stock boy and soda jerk, he became a partner in the business, which was founded in 1891, and, eventually, sole owner, along with his wife, Margaret.

Walton believes Fishell’s hard life growing up in Greensburg helped to inform his generosity toward others once he became a successful businessman as an adult. The youngest of 10 children, six of whom survived infancy, he lost his father when he was just 2, and his mother also died prematurely some years later.

“It was very difficult,” said Walton. “Their meal sometimes was just ketchup soup.”

Fishell and two of his brothers loaded a wagon with homemade bread they sold around town to help bring in money.

As a pharmacy owner, Fishell later hired local high school students to deliver medications to customers at their homes. One of the students, who lived in a single-parent household, couldn’t afford a sport jacket he needed to attend a function.

“My parents went to the Gongaware-Long (clothing) store downtown, and they provided him with a jacket,” Walton said. “Someone else we knew needed a tie for a job interview, and my dad went and bought him a tie.”

Despite long work hours, sometimes from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fishell found time to become involved in local civic, service and fraternal organizations.

That included stints as president of Greensburg’s business association and of the local Kiwanis Club. He also was a member of the Greensburg Veterans of Foreign Wars post, the Area Agency on Aging board and local chapters of the Shriners, Tall Cedars of Lebanon, Masons and Elks.

He and his wife, who died in 2013, were steady members of the Otterbein United Methodist Church.

Coleman recalled her father as “very outgoing and gregarious. He was very well-liked and respected in the community.”

“He could be a jokester, but he was a very decent man,” said Walton.