Arthur Lee Joki

Arthur Lee Joki was born in Astoria Oregon, May 2nd, 1930. He passed away peacefully in his home, the same home that he had lived in since 1956, in Grants Pass Oregon at the age of 77. His story would fit that of many people who live and die, except for one remarkable difference – Arthur Joki was one of the four longest living people in the world -- with the world’s first successful artificial heart valve.

Arthur Joki lived on borrowed time.

How much' It is estimated that his heart beat, which should have stopped for good at age 35 – continued an extra 1.6 Billion beats – all the time pumping a bonus 30 Million gallons of blood - for an additional 43 years, until it finally stopped this December 16th, 2007.

Arthur, know as “Dude” to everyone since his childhood, was born to a hardworking Finnish family. His grandparents had immigrated to the US and built their family home on West Duane Street in the Union Town section of Astoria around the turn of this century. Dude’s grandfather was a carpenter, and most of his family worked in the dangers of fishing industry that thrived at the mouth of the Columbia River.

As a young man, Dude and his childhood buddies worked hard in the Merchant Marines, and played hard on their 1940’s Norton motorcycles. But Dude Joki’s body held a deadly secret – although he had recovered from a child bought of rheumatic fever, unknown to all was whether it was this fever, or a congenital condition that createdthe defect in the Aortic valve of his heart which in turn pumped the blood of life through his body.

At age 19, Dude entered the US Army, and served in Japan during the Korean War as an Army Cook – and a good one at that! In 1953, his heart defect was discovered by an Army doctor, and although he attempted to reenlist, he was given a medical discharge.

While overseas, Dude’s mother Myrtle had moved to Southern Oregon, to the town of Grants Pass. Dude decided to join her there. At age 23, he knew that his veterans benefit couldn’t provide a living, so he went to work for his step dad, Howard Pruitt, pumping gas at the local gas station.

March 3rd,1956 – he asked his girlfriend Mary McCormick if she was brave enough to drive to Reno Nevada in the middle of the night and marry him. She said yes, and without telling either of their parents, the young couple drove all night to Reno, got married, and drove back to Grants Pass the same night - Dude had remembered that he had forgotten to feed his chickens, and had the bag of feed in the trunk of the car. Mary went home to face her mother that morning, and Dude went home to feed his chickens.

Like most of rural Oregon in the 1950’s, Grants Pass was a booming lumber town – and the mills offered the jobs that would lead to a decent paycheck. When a job opened at Bate Lumber Company in nearby Merlin, Dude jumped at the chance to work on the Log Pond. He wore spiked boots and jumped from log to log, moving the logs from the pond to the waiting saws inside the mill. Mary was a grade school teacher, and began teaching at Riverside School. Soon they bought a small house on Cloverlawn Drive, and started a family. First, their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1957, followed by their son Bobby in 1959. Together, their story was very much like so many others. But Dude Joki’s body was on a steady march to disaster.

In 1961, at age 31, his heart was failing to pump enough oxygen rich blood to keep him working at the mill. Dude applied for, and was given, a full medical retirement and benefits from the Army, so with Mary’s job as a teacher, they had enough income to make by.

This type of heart failure was always terminal, as there was no medical solution.

The valve would continue to fail, and Dude’s death was inevitable. The only question was how long he could live as the blood flow decreased. His heart was failing due to the damaged Aortic valve. His heart would try to pump the blood out into his artery, but the failing valve would let the blood flood back into his heart. No matter how much the heart