Funeral services for Joseph VanLeer Cleveland Jr., 64, of Washington were held Friday, September 1, 2006, at the Washington Seventh Day Adventist Church, with Minister Jacque Cleveland, Eulogist. He died Wednesday, August 23.

Mr. Cleveland was born in Washington, D.C., to the late Joseph V. Cleveland and the late Nanalene Jackson Cleveland Wallace, both of Washington. In the mid-1950s he and his family moved to New York City where he finished his secondary education at Morris High School. He later became head of security at the Mount Vernon Hospital in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He also worked as an EMS in the hospital's pathology department. Upon retiring from the hospital, he returned to Washington to run his family's business. He was a member of the Washington Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Survivors include a daughter, Valerie N. Cleveland, Rocky Mount, N.C.; two sons, Jacque V. Cleveland, Augusta, and Kevin Smith, Frisco, Texas; a granddaughter, Jasmine R. Cleveland, Washington; a grandson, Kevin Joseph Smith, Frisco, Texas; and four sisters, Josie Powell, Atlanta, Anna Ellison, Dalton, Virginia Murray, New York City, and Fannie Macon, Dalton.

McLendon Memorial Funeral Home of Washington was in charge of arrangements.