Longtime APT member Josh Silver passed away on September 5, 2024. His incredible knowledge, generosity, and friendliness will be greatly missed. Josh was a mentor and inspiration to many. Josh could always be counted on to volunteer for APT initiatives, including the 2022 Symposium and outreach to City Council members last spring. He led tours for APT members – a mural arts tour and one at Strawberry Mansion. He guided a segment of all the Great ‘River to River, Vine to Pine’ Tours. And that is only a small sliver of all he did!
APT, all of the tour companies he worked for, and Philadelphia itself are all so much better off because Josh was in the world.
His obituary mentions where donations can be made in his memory. Condolences can be left on the online message board after the obituary.
An informal gathering of tour guides to share memories about Josh will be held on October 8 at Carpenters’ Hall. RSVP requested.
FORMAL MEMORIAL SERVICE
The formal memorial will be held at Strawberry Mansion at 4 pm on October 27. His brothers wrote, “It will absolutely be open to all and we would be glad to have you re-post it to the tour guide folks in your associations and work places. That would be appreciated.” For this event, please rsvp directly to Josh’s brothers Dan daniel.silver@colorado.edu and/or Paul paulsilver1@icloud.com.
Dear Friends and Family of Josh Silver:
A memorial for Josh will be held on Sunday October 27th at 4pm EST (4PM in Philadelphia) at the Historic Strawberry Mansion in Philadelphia (2450 Strawberry Mansion Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19132). The memorial will be live with a synchronous remote viewing option. Of course, we would love to see you in person if possible.
The service will last a short hour and be followed by a chance to mingle over drinks and finger food.
Your RSVP, especially if you plan to attend live in person (!) is requested and RSVP’s from those wishing remote access viewing will be helpful as well. Reminders, more details, and information and links for the remote viewing will be sent closer to the event, but do save the date and time, and share this invite with those who may wish to know please.
Thanks to Strawberry Mansion for their generous support and to everyone who has reached out and shared their love, kindnesses, and stories with us. We are forever grateful to you, and look forward to celebrating Josh’s remarkable life.
— Dan and Paul Silver
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From Josh’s brothers Dan and Paul to APT President Marianne Ruane, September 8:
With a hole in our hearts, we write to let you know that Josh left this world Thursday morning. I expect Paul and I will share more later but you may feel free to share this news as you see fit with the tour guide friends and folks.
We may plan some sort of informal memorial weeks or months from now—either a Public event in Philly and/or some sort of ZOOM-style remote happening.
I just looked over the emails from August 13th, when Josh surprised us by getting on the meditation ZOOM you had in honor of Josh, and one for which I was sure that all my help to get him to join in had failed! I was in Michigan working and hoping to help remotely, but he was glad to have tuned in, and I was quite amazed he did so.
We are grateful for the community of peers, friends, and co-workers Josh had in the historian and tour-guiding domains. He loved history, loved Philadelphia, and loved simply just connecting with people like some story-telling ethnographer so very deeply, and I know that that love and camaraderie was reciprocated from so many good people, yourself included.
In the midst of our mourning, we find comfort that Josh very-very recently had asked to be comfortable above all, and we are glad he is suffering no longer.
Be in touch anytime, and thank you.
Dan and Paul Silver