Joseph Bodell Bergen

Savannah, GA- Joseph Bodell Bergen, J.D., a prominent trial lawyer, member of the State Bar of Georgia and of the District of Columbia Bar, and husband of Shirley Shearouse Bergen, died on March 22, 2007.

He was the son of the late architect Cletus William Bergen and the late Hildegarde Blake Bergen, and the grandson of the late Alonso Davison Bergen and the late Alice Bodell Bergen.

Following graduation from Marist School for Boys in Savannah, he graduated in 1943 from Savannah High School where he was active in athletics and drama, and was an officer in the Reserve Officer Training Corps ROTC. While in High School he was elected President of the Junior Red Cross of Savannah. He was then called to active duty in the Army Air Corps during World War II, having volunteered to serve at seventeen years of age, and attended pre-Flight School at Michigan State College before earning his wings as a Bombardier-Navigator, flying A-26 Attack Bombers and later training as a Radar-Navigator-Bombardier in B-25 Medium Bombers for the Invasion of Japan in B-29 Heavy Bombers.

After attending the Georgia School of Technology at the end of World War II, he graduated from the University of Georgia Law School in 1950 with a Bachelor of Laws Degree from which he was later conferred with a Juris Doctor Degree. While at Law School he was elected an Associated Justice of the Law School Honor Court and to membership in Delta Theta Phi and the Demosthenian Society. On his fiftieth anniversary of graduation from the University of Georgia Law School he was recognized with a Golden Jubilee Diploma. When the Savannah Bar Association honored its fifty year members, United States Supreme Court associate Justice Clarence Thomas came to Savannah to pay personal tribute to Joe Bergen for legal services rendered him and his family.

Upon graduation from Law School he was appointed Judicial Law Clerk for the Chief Judge of the Superior Court for the Eastern Judicial Circuit of Georgia and later became an Associate of the Savannah law firm, Bouhan, Lawrence, Williams & Levy.

In 1951 he was recalled to active duty in the United States Air Force during the Korean Conflict and trained as a pilot. He soloed in a single engine T-6 on his twenty-seventh birthday, and after pilot training was later assigned to duty as an Air Force Judge Advocate to prosecute and defend military criminal charges, and was then graduated from the Army Judge Advocate School at the University of Virginia, with Honors, on the Commander’s List, after which he was a Strategic Defense graduate of the National War College in Washington, D.C. He had previously selected to attend and graduated from The Air Force Command and Staff School, The Industrial College of the armed Forces and the Armed Forces Staff College. He was thereafter selected to be a member of an Air Force Team to inspect and report on the status of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO Air Bases in Europe. He retired from the United States Air Force with the rank of Colonel after thirty-five years combined active duty and active reserve service, with his Retirement Ceremony taking place in the office of the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General at the Pentagon. He was decorated with the Legion of Merit Medal, as authorized by The President, for exceptional performance of outstanding service in the United States Air Force.

In 1953 he had been appointed as Assistant United Sates Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia during the Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, trying civil cases and prosecuting criminal cases for the United States Government. During this time he was singularly presented to the United States Supreme Court for admission to the bar of that Court by the Solicitor General of the United States. He was later appointed United States Commissioner to serve as a Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Georgia. During this time he also served as President of the Savannah Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, after which he became a partner in the Savannah law firm of Cheatham, Bergen & Sparkman, trying civil damage cases and defending civilian and military criminal charges brought to trial.

At the time of his death he had been senior partner in the law firm of Bergen & Bergen since 1986 with his son Frederick Shearouse Bergen, J.D.

He was a founding member of the Chatham County Law Library and remained a board member of this law library until his death. He was Co-Chairman of the Economics Committee of the Sate Bar of Georgia and was Chairman of the State Bar Grievance Tribunal for the Eastern Judicial Circuit of Georgia. He also had been elected Jury Foreman in the Superior Court of Chatham County.

He was a lifelong member of the Roman Catholic Church where he taught religion classes for seventeen years and was a Lay Lector for thirty-five years. He was a 4th Degree member of the Knights of Columbus. He was also a member of the Secular Third Order of Saint Francis. He had been an active member of The Hibernian Society of Savannah along with his late father, late brother, William Petty Bergen, and with his son. He later served The Hibernian Society as Secretary and Parliamentarian and was elected an Honorary Member, in which role he remained until the time of his death. He was elected to The Hibernian Society as the maternal great-grandson of William Lawrence Bodell and Catherine Craney Bodell from Kilkenny, Ireland, and who were the parents of his grandmother, Alice Bodell Bergen.

Colonel Bergen was also a former member of the Rotary Club of Savannah with his late father and late brother. He was past Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Aviation committee and a member for many years of the Blood Donor Committee of the Savannah Chapter of the American Red Cross. He was past President of of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, Savannah Alumni, who conferred upon him the Order of the Sphinx for his service. He was also a member of the Georgia Historical Society and was a member of The Holland Society of New York; a member of the Sons of the revolution, where he served on the board of Directors of this society; a member of The Military Order of the Stars and Bars; and the Military Order of the World Wars.

He was elected to The Holland Society of New York as a direct descendant of Hans Hansen Bergen who emigrated in 1632 from Bergen, Norway, through Holland, to New Amsterdam, Now Manhattan Island, New York, as one of the original settlers in the Colony of New Netherlands comprised of the area that now includes a portion of Connecticut, New York State, and New Jersey. Hans Hansen Bergen married Sarah Rapalie, the first child born in the Colony of New Netherlands of European parentage, her father being from Rochelle, France and her mother from Paris, France. Hans Hansen Bergen and his three sons were shipbuilders and among the largest planters in New Amsterdam.

When Colonel Bergen and his wife Shirley visited Bergen, Norway three hundred and sixty years after Hans Hansen Bergen came to New Amsterdam, Colonel Bergen was honored with a Dignitary Reception in the office of the Mayor of Bergen and presented with the flag of the City of Bergen. Colonel Bergen then presented an Olympic Pin to the City Manager of Bergen and invited him to attend the upcoming Olympic Sailboat Races to take place the next year in the Atlantic Ocean hosted by the city of Savannah. He was then interviewed in the Bergen City Park on Bergen radio before going to the Bergen Rotary Club where he had been invited to speak and attend another reception in honor of his forebearer from Bergen.

Colonel Bergen was elected to the Sons of the Revolution as a descendant of John B. Bergen who served as an Officer in “The Jersey Blues” during the American Revolution in the Army of General George Washington and fought in all the major battles, that included the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was a member of the Guard protecting General Washington’s Headquarters at Valley Forge, and he later fought at Yorktown and was present at the surrender by British General Charles Cornwallis.

Colonel Bergen was elected to the Military Order of the Stars and Bars as a
maternal great-grandson of James Merrill Smith, an officer in the Army of the Confederate States of America who participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter and was in charge of the detail that retrieved cannon, while under fire, from the Federal Monitor Keokuk after it had been damaged and beached during a battle with Confederate Shore batteries in Charleston Harbor. One of thee cannons is now on display at Battery Park in Charleston. This great-grandfather was present at the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. The daughter of James Merrill Smith later married Colonel Bergen’s grandfather, Heronimus Augustus Blake, from Prussia, who had disembarked on Christmas Eve, 1882, at Georgetown, South Carolina from a ship out of Bremen Harbor, Germany.

Colonel Bergen is survived by his Devoted Wife, Shirley, to whom he had been happily married for fifty-five years, and is survived by his Good Son, Fred, and his wife, Malinda Bradley Bergen, and their children, his Only Grandson, Frederick Shearouse Bergen, Jr., and his Most Beautiful Blonde Granddaughter, Fontaine Bradley Bergen; his Dear Daughter, Virginia Bergen Smircic, and her husband, Frank Smircic, Jr., and their child, his Most Beautiful Brunette Granddaughter, Shirley Bergen Smircic; and his Dear Daughter, Elizabeth Bergen Zabak, and her husband, Richard Michael Zabak, J.D. He is also survived by his sister, Hildegarde Bergen Broderick, widow of the late John Reid Broderick, Jr., M.D.

Friends of the family are invited to a Rosary Service and reception at The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on Sunday, March 25, 2007. The family will receive friends from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. with a Rosary Service to be held at 6:00 p.m.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be con-celebrated at The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, March 26, 2007.
Active Pallbearers will be John Skeadas II, Joe Kehoe, Chris Beckman, Hugh Tarbutton, Buster Joyner, Warren Turner, Joe Barrow, John Kennedy and Irving Victor, M.D.
Honorary Pallbearers will be Kirk McAlpin, Michael Egan, The Honorable Frank S. Cheatham, Jr., Robert Myers, Albert Howard, M.D., Walton Skip Hicks, Jr., and Julian K. Quattlebaum, Jr., M.D. as well as members of The Hibernian Society and the Savannah Bar Association.

Interment will follow in the Bergen Family Lot in Catholic Cemetery with Full Military Honors.

Colonel Bergen has asked that remembrances be made to a Roman Catholic Church for Masses said for his Immortal Soul to be Eternally United in Christ.