By Rebecca Billman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Joseph F. Link Jr., professor emeritus of economics at Xavier University and education consultant to the U.S. State Department in Central America, died Jan. 1. The Evanston resident was 89.

Dr. Link was an economics professor at Xavier from 1946 to 1976 and was also a faculty member at Roger Bacon High School, the former Our Lady of Cincinnati College and the College-Conservatory of Music.

An accomplished organist, Dr. Link served for years as the boys' choir director at Annunciation Church in Clifton.

"Dr. Link was the choirmaster for the choir I was in when I was a little boy," said former Enquirer publisher Bill Keating of Hyde Park. "We traveled all over the city singing at churches. He was really good to the young people in the choir and ... was an extraordinarily talented person."

In addition to teaching, Dr. Link was a former president of the Vernon Manor Hotel, Avondale; J.A. Fay & Egan, a machine tool company, and Swan Creek Lumber Co. as well as a former administrator of Fort Scott summer camps in New Baltimore, Ohio.

He was a member of the Roger Bacon High School Class of 1931 and graduated magna cum laude from Xavier University in 1935. At Xavier he was editor of the XU News and a member the Xavier Presents club.

During World War II he worked with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps and taught at the I&E Staff School at the University of Paris and at Shrivenham University in England. As editor of the European Edition of Stars & Stripes, he covered the liberation of the Dachau Prison Camp and the Nuremberg Trials. Dr. Link was a graduate of the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. He was preceded in death by Margaret Closterman Schott Link, his wife of 12 years, in 1972.

Survivors include nieces and nephews.

Mass of Christian burial is 10:30 a.m. today at Bellermine Chapel at Xavier University.

Memorials: Dr. Joseph F. Link Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund, Xavier University 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati 45207.

E-mail rbillman@enquirer.com