Photo courtesy of Southwest Minnesota State University. Joe Amato, former SMSU professor of History and Rural and Regional Studies, gives a speech during a luncheon at the Lifetime Achievement Award event by the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums in April 2018.

MARSHALL — Those that crossed paths or knew Joseph A. Amato closely all attest to similar attributes that describe him: A historian and scholarly author that carried immense pride in sharing wisdom with his community. Amato was a retired Southwest Minnesota State University history professor, and passed at 87 years old on Jan. 24, 2025.

“Joe is bigger than life. He was always thinking and trying to create new works,” longtime colleague and friend Jan Louwagie said. “He was working the day before he passed away. He was just a wonderful, creative thinker.”

Louwagie, Joan Gittens and Jeff Kolnick all worked with Amato in the history department at SMSU, and Dana Yost was a close friend where the two bonded over writing.

Amato was an author of over 30 books, professor, public speaker and local scholar. His career was focused on studying rural and regional history amongst a range of other topics. He also helped found the history department at SMSU, and eventually became director of the Center for Rural and Regional Studies.

Amato first got to SMSU in the fall of 1969. The Detroit, Michigan, native taught a range of courses.

“Joe was instrumental in really trying to capture the history of our region,” Louwagie said, who knew Amato for 45 years. “He started an organization called the Society for Study of Local and Regional History, which purpose was to try to capture the history of our region.”

Amato received a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Michigan in 1960, his history master’s degree from the Université de Laval in Québec in 1963, and his doctorate from the University of Rochester, New York, in 1970.

Due to his dedication of spending decades studying southwest Minnesota, the Lyon County Museum opened the Joseph A. Amato Research Center in June 2024.

“That was nice that everything got named and started before he passed away,” Louwagie said, who serves on the board of the museum. “He was able to come here and do a talk, knowing that we all respected his work.”

Amato was an author of nearly any topic he could think of and find relation to.

“He was a prolific scholar … As a historian later in life, he went and did fiction and poetry,” Kolnick said. “He left an enormous body of work.”

Along with his history, fiction and poetry work, Louwagie added that he would get creative in his work and wrote books on dust, golfing and bypass surgery.

“He never quit writing. He was always writing,” Louwagie said. “I always really enjoyed the talks and lectures that he put on, and he did that at least a couple times a year. He opened his stories and his ideas to the public.”

The Lyon County Museum also has copies of every one of his books.

Yost, former editor of the Independent until 2008, became close friends with Amato over the last decade.

“We met through our coverage with him and his books, and then I did some stories myself. We have both had an interest in local rural history, so that brought us together,” Yost said. “I became the first or second reader of a lot of his newer books when they were in draft form … He read a bunch of my poetry, and especially my history book “1940,” he was a big influence there.”

Yost talked with Amato 24 hours before he passed.

“I talked to him the day before he died. We had a 40 minute phone conversation, and it was a really good visit,” Yost said. “He was working on the second installment of a three part autobiography, so we talked a lot about the draft of that book.”

Kolnick affirms that Amato had a way of influencing his students.

“I know that his former students really loved him, and that he was an important mentor,” Kolnick said. “He had a reputation of being an outstanding teacher.”

Amato was named SMSU’s Dean of Rural and Regional Studies in March of 1999. Doug Sweetland was the President at the time, and knew he was the right fit for the role.

“Education and research regarding our region and its unique attributes has long been a focus at Southwest State University,” Sweetland said, per SMSU’s 1999 newspaper archive. “It starts with our mission and continues in our longstanding commitment to rural studies. That direction can largely be attributed to the work of Joe Amato and his colleagues in rural and regional studies. I am very pleased to have Joe serve in this position.”

The fame Amato built up locally was one that people tried to win over, attesting to his reliability in historic knowledge.

“I remember at one point, I was listening to national or Minnesota Public Radio, and somebody mentioned that they were going to interview him. She (radio host) said, ‘We fought over who was going to get to interview this man,'” Gittens said. “Which is so interesting, that was the kind of mind he had. He was just always looking around.”

Amato had a hand in the start up of several groups and organizations at the university and locally. But, beyond all he did through education, it’s his character that will also leave a legacy to his name.

“He always aged with people in the community. There were people who just loved him,” Gittens said. “They would go to any talk he ever gave. He really was very good at connecting with people.”

Outside of school and writing, Amato was an avid golfer.

“Joe and I played golf several times, and he was a good golfer. Much better than me,” Kolnick said, laughing. “He even wrote a book on golf, one of his favorite books.”

Amato and his late wife, Catherine, were married for 55 years and had four children: Felice, Anthony, Adam, and Elizabeth. She passed away in August of 2021. The two originally met in the cafeteria of Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, and they married in 1966.

The knowledge Amato shared, the history he discovered and the books he wrote will undoubtedly remain alive in his memory.

“He was enormously loyal to his friends. He was incredibly committed to his family, and he was committed to giving back to the place that gave him his career,” Kolnick said. “He was generous with his wisdom.”