Josefina "Josie" Naungayan Luce

The greatest of the holy virtues is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13; Matthew 22:36-40. At 12:42 a.m. on June 29, 2025, a marvelous exemplar of this greatest of virtues entered a new phase of the eternal life she has through Jesus Christ when she left this world.

Josefina ("Josie") Naungayan Luce was born July 27, 1957 in Kiamba, Sarangani Province, Philippines, the fifth of eight children (and the youngest daughter) of the late Jose and Tomasa Naungayan. She shares her father's birthday and is named after him.

Josie long yearned to come to America in hopes she could earn enough money to put her daughter Karen through college. After five attempts, Josie was finally granted a visa in 1999. With many fears and tears, she left her close family in the Philippines to come to a strange land halfway around the world. She began working as a nanny in Nebraska. Eventually, she became a United States citizen.

This petite Ilokano lady from an obscure barrio in the Philippines ended up putting not just her daughter but at least a dozen of her family members through college, educating nurses, engineers, teachers, and others. She built her parents what her father called a "mansion" in the Philippines so that in their declining years they would have conveniences that Americans take for granted such as glass windows and indoor bathrooms with flush toilets. She was the primary provider of medical and dental care to her extended family abroad.

Josie had a gift for packing an enormous amount of clothes and other items into standard packing boxes, sending many such boxes every year to her extended family (many of whom call her "Mommy") in the Philippines. Watching her shop for the contents of these boxes was a delight; she took enormous pleasure and joy in buying things for her nieces and nephews that she never had growing up.

Josie met her husband, George, when she was living with her sister Corazon Perkins and her family in Baton Rouge. They married on her birthday in 2002, just days before he began law school in Chicago. While there, Josie utilized a network of Filipino friends to find work as a caregiver for elderly people. In 2005, she and George returned to Louisiana and have since resided a few miles from Corazon.

Josie made her house a delightful home, cooking delicious Filipino and American dishes, spoiling her husband by doing all the housework—even meticulously folding his underclothes after doing the laundry. To her, none of that was a chore; it was all an expression of her love.

She had a natural intuition for what was aesthetically beautiful. She spent many hours tending to her many dozens of all sorts of potted plants strategically located throughout the premises, each one looking as though it were the perfect one for its place and could not rationally fit anywhere else. She picked precisely the right frames, pieces of furniture, decorative knickknacks, etc. She collected cute little purses, cute little teapots—even cute little dogs.

In appearance, Josie had a button nose, high cheek bones, small exotic eyes, classic Filipino almond-colored skin, and soft and lovely dark hair. She was petite and athletic. People would sometimes comment on her cute little hands. Even by her mid-60s, she was considered quite attractive by the standards of any age group, and people often guessed her to be decades younger than she was.

Paradoxically, Josie could be particular and stubborn and sensitive, yet utterly sweet and pure, all at once. With her naïve simplicity, the way all the little muscles in her face would move with expression, her amusing locutions (delivered in her adorable accent) such as "How dare you are!" and "I'll not gonna . . .," she was just as indescribably precious and cute as a little child.

Josie is so much more. She was and is a magnificent gift from Almighty God.

Josie is preceded in death by her parents, Jose and Tomasa Naungayan, and her sister Brenda. She is survived by her husband of almost 23 years, George Luce, and her daughter Karen Blanton (husband Charlie). Karen served as Josie's full-time caregiver and acted as a 24/7 ICU nurse throughout Josie's last year of life when she was ill from a malignant meningioma. She is also survived by her sisters Anelita and Corazon, brothers Melchor, Rodolfo, Antonio, and Jessie, and many nieces, nephews, and other relatives.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

Anyone who wishes to honor Josie is welcome to attend viewing at Little Prairie Baptist Church in Prairieville on July 7, 2025 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., and viewing at Carpenter's Chapel UMC on July 8 at 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. with service to follow at 10:00 a.m. Burial will follow at Carpenter's Chapel Cemetery.