Joachim “Joe” Ernst Willi Zenk, 83, passed away peacefully on February 11, 2023, at home in Orono, Maine. Joe was born on September 6, 1939, to Ernst Zenk and Ilse Strosin Zenk in the war-torn Baltic city of Stettin, Germany — now Szeszcin, Poland. His childhood was occupied with surviving the domineering and horrifying regimes that pushed his family to migrate through Europe and then immigrate to the United States as farm workers. When he was a teenager his family found a home in West Bend, Wisconsin, where he and his sisters could attend schools, work, and make friends. He graduated from UW–Madison with degrees in English literature and history, and then from UW–Milwaukee with an advanced degree in history.