Joseph was born in Ville Platte, Louisiana as one of three sons to Arciduse Guillory, a grocer, and Lydia Guillory, both of French ancestry. Arciduse, Joseph recalls, spoke only broken English. His mother spoke French, the language of nearly all residents of Pine Prairie, the community of his boyhood. "I didn't speak English until I started to school. We spoke French at home," he remarks. Joseph learned English mostly from playmates. The family lived in "a little bitty house" behind his father's mercantile store, where Arciduse sold both groceries and hardware. During World War II, he recalls, his father placed the family car on blocks because of gas rationing. Fortunately, he says, both the family's church and the school were just a few blocks away from the Guillory residence. Joseph earned extra money by mowing, picking figs, feeding cows, and working at the Pine Theater. There he popped popcorn and collected tickets, for which he was paid five dollars a week. He graduated from Pine Prairie High School in 1957, then entered Shreveport Trade School where he learned barbering. After completing the school in October of 1958 he worked in Eunice, Louisiana for about eight months. Haircuts, then, were $1.25. He returned to Shreveport where he was working when he was drafted in November of 1961. He took basic and advanced individual training in infantry and mortars, and completed leadership school, all at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. With orders for Germany, he sailed to Bremerhaven, Germany, earning $100 for giving haircuts aboard ship. Stationed at Worms, he participated in field exercises as an infantryman machine gunner, carrying an M-60. He returned from Germany in October of 1963, when he was discharged from active duty and assigned to reserve duty with the 45^th National Guard Division of Oklahoma. He returned to Tommy Wilson Barbershop on 70^th Street in Shreveport, where he was working before his service. Joseph married Ruth Diane Loyd on April 25, 1964. (They would have three children and nine grandchildren.) In 1973 he opened his own barber shop on Kingston Road in Shreveport.