INGLESIDE, Tx — The City of Ingleside proclaimed August 21 as "Jean Joyce Day" during last week's city council meeting. Today, the Ingleside Senior Center celebrated the occasion.
August 21 also marks National Senior Citizens Day as well.
"It's overwhelming, it's overwhelming, but it's wonderful. I'll never be able to live this down," said Jean Joyce, 94, describing the feeling of the past week. The proclamation was a complete surprise to Joyce. "I said that the senior club was gonna be closed down and she needed to voice her opinion," was the story Joyce's daughter, Cathy Larew, told her mother to get her to the council meeting.
Upon her arrival, she was greeted by fellow senior citizens and members of the Gardening Club, to which Joyce is a member, who organized the proclamation. The surprise left Joyce "dumbfounded."
Jean Joyce was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, before her husband promised to move her somewhere the sun always shined. She joked that upon her arrival in Ingleside in 1976, the city got 13 inches of rain.
Joyce quickly got to work volunteering in the community. Over the past 50 years, she has served as a member of the Red Hat Society, an international women's organization dedicated to "encouraging women in their quest to pursue fun, friendship, fitness, and freedom to express lifelong dreams."
She was also involved with the Alzheimer's Association while caring for her mother-in-law and later her husband, who were both diagnosed with the disease.
Of all of Joyce's volunteer work, she is most proud of the garden at the Senior Center. She started the garden 20 years ago with another community member. "We had four bushes. I bought two, and she bought two." Joyce quickly expanded the garden and has maintained it along with members of the Gardening Club ever since.
In honor of Joyce's dedication to the garden over the years, The Gardening Club, Senior Center Aide Lupe Martinez and Larew surprised her with the establishment of "Jean Joyce's Garden" in her honor.
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