Joyce Elizabeth Worthington

Joyce Elizabeth Worthington (née Poindexter), 82, of Fort Collins, Colorado, passed away on October 31, 2026, at the Good Samaritan Society. She was born February 24, 1944, in Wolcott, Indiana, the youngest of six children of Tim S. and Thelma Christine Poindexter.

Joyce was a small-town girl through and through, and she never stopped crediting Wolcott for the person she became. In a town where everyone knew her and her family, she learned early that work was nothing to be afraid of. At fourteen she inherited the popcorn-and-ticket job at the Wolcott Theater from her sister Carolyn, earning fifty cents an hour. She also kept order among the teenage boys in the audience, since the owner was busy in the projection booth. After that came babysitting, then a job as a teller at the Remington State Bank.

She married and made her home on farms around Remington and Chalmers, where she raised her three children. Joyce had always wanted to be a foster mother, and from the mid-1970s she and her family opened their home to nine foster children. Several of those children held a permanent place in the family's memory.

Joyce was never afraid of a new job, and she held more of them than anyone can count. She typed the Sunday bulletin at Chalmers Community Church, worked in the White County Courthouse clerk's offices, and handled credit accounts at Sears in Lafayette. She was a secretary, and later a teacher's aide, at the Comprehensive Developmental Center in Monticello. Later she took a job as a night waitress, then moved to Bob Evans Restaurants. There she became a traveling trainer who helped open restaurants across the Midwest and as far away as Florida and Missouri, the "Show Me State," where she discovered that nobody wanted to be the first customer. Next was a filing job at Great Lakes Chemical grew into a secretarial career there.

When she'd had her fill of Indiana weather, Joyce moved to Nashville and spent a stretch as a nanny. She then came home to Indiana as a house mother at a Purdue sorority. She went on to build a long career at Purdue University, working her way through one department after another. Not content with one job, she also worked weekends at Staples and Menards. The Purdue students she worked beside at the register were stunned to learn how many hours in a row she had worked.

In 2003 Joyce married Don Worthington and they moved to Colorado, where she described life as simply good. Together they took fourteen cruises in sixteen years, visited all fifty states, and traveled to England, Africa, Mexico, Canada and Hawaii. They went to Las Vegas twice a year and never missed a chance to host a big meal for family and friends. Joyce loved photography and a good crossword puzzle, and she was happiest when the people she loved were around her table.

Joyce is survived by her husband, Don Worthington; her children, Dennis Rausch (Beatrix), Cheryl Jacobs (Jeffery), and Kevin Rausch (Tammy); grandchildren Sarah Williams (Matthew), Matt Rausch, Riley Jacobs, and Connor Rausch; great-granddaughter Ava Marino; stepchildren Beth McFarlin (Bill) and Bruce Worthington (Janet); step-grandchildren Sam McFarlin, Katie McFarlin and Ksenia Lewyckyj; and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents and her siblings James, Tim Lee, Richard, Carolyn Burrel, and Bob Poindexter.

The family will celebrate Joyce's life at a private gathering, and no public service is planned. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Joyce's memory to Realities for Children, an organization that matched her lifelong care for kids in need.