Joyce LeeClara McCray

On November 2, 2021, the world lost to this life an amazing woman, Joyce LeeClara McCray of Longmont, CO. Joyce was born in 1929 in Pleasant Plain, Iowa, to Clara Lorena (West) and Lee Henry Stockman. At age 17 she married Gordon Franklin McCray in Boulder, CO. The two enjoyed a long, loving, and happy life together with similar interests, which included making a warm and inviting home, a passionate dedication to family and friends, camping with their children and grandchildren, baseball, and many dogs and cats throughout the years. As far as anyone knows, after Gordon’s return from the service, they were never apart for even a day, except for Gordon’s yearly fishing trip with his friend, Joe, because that sort of camping was too rugged and uncivilized for Joyce.

Joyce worked, along with her mother, at Mountain Bell (Century Link) from age 16 until her retirement at about age 55. The telephone was like an extension to her being and throughout her life she never hesitated to give a call to those she liked to talk to or anyone else to find out something she wanted to know. She worked as an operator in the days of party lines and information given from real operators. In fact, once a young man from out of town called the Boulder phone company, trying desperately to find the girl he had met at the county fair. He happened to have on the other end of the line, Joyce, the girl’s aunt, and after scrutiny he was given her last name and number. Even with the pandemic’s closure of doors to visitors at assisted living and memory care homes, Joyce continued to enjoy her phone, a little turquoise princess phone, and conversed with visitors outside on their cell phones. She delighted in receiving and returning entertainment through the glass, though at that point she could no longer comprehend something as strange as a pandemic. Even so, she went with what was happening, saying that if she ever got her hands on that virus, she’d ring its neck.

Joyce and Gordon had 3 children, Sandra, Irene, and Scott, 7 grandchildren, Brian Delka (Lara), Erik Delka (Janice Purvis), Erin (Porter) Lasic (Jim), Coleen (Porter) Curly (Andrew), Brendon Porter (Jillian), Katherine McCray, and Kent McCray, and 13 great grandchildren. Gordon and Joyce were certain that all were the very best people in the world. She liked to give family members and herself very specialized nicknames. When her first grandson tried to say Granma, and it somehow came out Banti, from that moment on she insisted for herself to be called Banti by everyone.

Joyce was totally in her element in the kitchen, happily cooking and baking her signature dishes for anyone who happened to be in the house. She liked to knit, put together puzzles, and play Solitaire, while she and Gordon watched baseball on television. She also liked to wallpaper any wall in sight and that was the only thing she and Gordon were known to ever disagree about. She often had to continue the pasting of lovely wall patterns without him, but her tenaciousness always got the job done.

Joyce was preceded in death by her parents, her beloved husband, her daughter Sandra Lee (McCray) Porter of Murrysville, PA, her son, Scott Brian McCray of Boulder, CO, and grandson Kent McCray of Broomfield, CO. She is survived by her daughter Irene McCray of Longmont, CO and sister Pat McClung of San Jose, CA. She will also be missed by her brother-in-law, Don McClung, daughter-in-law, Nora McCray, sons-in-law, Ron Delka, Russell Porter, and John Browne. All of her grandchildren will remember her fondly, as will her many nieces and nephews, who she loved dearly. Bross Street Assisted Living, Applewood Our House Memory Care, Life Care of Longmont, and Safe Harbor Assisted Living were her homes the last few years of her life, where her wit and humor were noticed and loved by all.