Joseph and Maxine Cassin, married 55 years, die days apart Times Picayune 03-15-2010 Submitted By NOVA ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Joseph Cassin was a New Orleans social worker who had survived the infamous Bataan Death March in World War II. Maxine Cassin, his wife, was a New Orleans poet who edited a journal that brought attention to promising practitioners of that craft. The Cassins, who had been married 55 years, died within days of each other last week in separate hospitals in the Baton Rouge area, where they had lived after Hurricane Katrina battered their Uptown home. Mr. Cassin died March 7 at Lane Memorial Hospital in Zachary. He was 89. Mrs. Cassin died Thursday at Ochsner Medical Center of Baton Rouge. She was 82. She had suffered from seizure-related problems, said Daniel Cassin, their son, who said he wasn't sure how much she could understand when he told her that her husband had died. "I had told her she would be with Dad and he'd be waiting for her," he said. Mr. Cassin, a native of Salem, Mass., enlisted in the Army shortly after the United States entered World War II. He was a radio specialist in the Philippines when Allied forces surrendered Bataan to the Japanese in April 1942. He and 12,000 other Americans were among about 90,000 prisoners forced to march 60 miles in brutal heat with little food and almost no water. Only about 54,000 survived. During that march to a prisoner-of-war camp, Mr. Cassin said in a 2000 interview, he saw Japanese soldiers shoot and behead prisoners, stab them with bayonets and bury them alive. During the three years he was a prisoner, Mr. Cassin and other inmates had to march three miles to a coal mine to work for 10 hours before marching back. By the end of the war, the 6-foot-tall Mr. Cassin said he weighed 110 pounds. He graduated from the University of Georgia after the war and earned a degree in social work, Daniel Cassin said. Mr. Cassin came to New Orleans looking for work and wound up selling furniture and appliances at two department stores. He became a social worker in New Orleans' public schools and retired in the early 1980s, his son said. Mrs. Cassin, a native New Orleanian, graduated from Newcomb College and became part of the local arts community. Among the people she befriended was the photographer Clarence John Laughlin. Some books of her poetry contain his pictures. In the 1950s, Mrs. Cassin and Richard Ashman, a Tulane University philosophy professor, founded The New Orleans Poetry Journal Press. They joined local poet Everette Maddox to edit the first edition of The Maple Leaf Rag, a local poetry anthology. Ralph Adamo, a New Orleans poet, said Mrs. Cassin used her press to publish the works of poets in whom she believed, including James Wright, John Gery and Vassar Miller. After Miller's death in 1998, Mrs. Cassin established a poetry award in her honor for graduate students at the University of New Orleans. There are four compilations of Mrs. Cassin's poetry: "A Touch of Recognition," "Turnip's Blood," "The Other Side of Sleep" and "Against the Clock." "Her own poetry was deceptively quiet," Adamo said, "but it reflected vast erudition and gave off great heat and great light." Before Katrina, Mrs. Cassin was a volunteer poetry teacher for 12 years at Uptown Shepherd's Center, a daytime activity spot for senior citizens. In addition to Daniel Cassin, who lives in Baton Rouge, survivors include two grandchildren. A memorial service will be held March 28 at 2 p.m. at Congregation B'nai Israel Synagogue, 3354 Kleinert Ave., in Baton Rouge. A New Orleans memorial service will be held sometime in the spring. Rabenhorst Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.