Mary "Joyce" Nelson, aged 82, died Friday, August 16 ^th , 2019 from complications related to diabetes. Joyce died, as she lived, surrounded by love and over a dozen close family members.

Mary Joyce was born on September 7 ^th , 1936 in Sioux City, Iowa, the daughter of Theodore Forney and Mary Clare Beacom Forney.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 43 years, C. Howard Nelson in 2000 and her sisters Connie Hanson, Colleen Forney, Barbara Sitzmann, and Joan Forney.  She is survived by three sisters Grace Rustan, Katherine Gumbrecht, and Maureen Garrison; five children and their spouses, Joan and Thomas Hamilton, Linda and Matthew Dusanic, Mark Nelson and Lizette Harrison, Deborah Nelson, and Mary and Max Kuney; special cousins Thomas and Michael Beacom and Mary Claire Kenne; her grandchildren Athena Mangano, Beth Silver, Cara Hamilton, Matthew, M.C., and Katherine Dusanic, Devon Byers and Payton Harrison-Gonzalez, Ben, Adam, and Jonathan Bence, Connie Kuney-Pitts and Jeff Kuney; and eight great-grandchildren.

Joyce's childhood and early childhood had a dramatic impact on the person she became. Born amid the Great Depression, Joyce was the oldest of eight girls. When her mother died delivering the last of her sisters, her father sent the girls to St. Anthony's Orphanage in Sioux City where she became a surrogate mother at age nine. From the start, Joyce was fiercely protective of her sisters, and the experience was a foundational event in her life; shaping incredibly strong bonds with her siblings. It also installed a love of family that became a hallmark of the person she was.

In eighth grade, Joyce was fortunate to be able to move in with her Grandmother, Grace Beacon, and then with her aunt and uncle T.A. and Lorraine Beacom.  They were loving people and provided the stability that she had not experienced up to that point in life.  She graduated from Bishop Heelan Catholic High School, Sioux City, IA in 1954, and spent a year at Briar Cliff College before taking on a job at Sioux Tools.

Joyce met her life-long companion, and husband, C. Howard Nelson at a local Grange Hall dance in 1956, and they were married the next year on February 16 ^th , 1957.  She and her husband lived, worked, began, and grew a family starting in Sioux City, IA and settled permanently in Spokane, WA.

For the past half-century, Joyce has been the center of the Nelson family universe.  She has lived in the same area of Spokane for all that time, as has most of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was never judgmental, always upbeat, always saw the good in everyone, and did not tolerate negativity.  But more than anything else was a belief in her family.

Joyce loved traveling; she had a passion for stain glass artistry and was an avid collector of giraffes. Her stain glass workshop was a wonder to behold, and her grandchildren have fond memories of seeing beautiful works-in-progress – many of which adorn their homes. Her collection of giraffes is ending up in good homes as treasured keepsakes.

Joyce was the person that anyone of any age could go and talk to about life's issues great and small. If you were sick, bored, wanted a back rub, or just needed company, you went to Joyce's house. Her grandchildren have loads of stories of the time they spent with Grandma – from going to the movies to picking the raspberries from the bushes in her back yard. She was her family's biggest booster and always believed in them.

Her family would like to extend a thank you to the kind and caring staff at Sullivan Park Assisted Living and Fresenius Kidney Care.  They treated Joyce as the special woman that she was.