Joyce Hobbs Cantrell

Joyce Laree Hobbs Cantrell, adored wife, loving mother and grandmother, cherished sister and friend, passed gently at her home on Friday the 17th of April 2015 at the age of 90. She was preceded in death by the love of her life and husband, William Allen Cantrell, M.D.

Born in Rocky, Oklahoma the 10th of December 1924 to William S. (Seab) and Moneta Stewart Hobbs, she was one of eight children and their first daughter. She graduated Valedictorian of her High School class at age 16 to then hold her first paying job as a legal secretary in Cordell, Oklahoma. Four years later, during WWII, a handsome Navy doctor stationed at the Naval Air Station Clinton near Burns Flat, Oklahoma caught her eye while playing piano in the Officer’s Club. After an intense three week courtship, they married the 17th of January 1945. The couple returned to Galveston, Texas after the war whereupon Bill completed his Residency in Psychiatry at U.T.M.B. and Joyce continued her career as a legal secretary for a Federal Judge in Galveston County. Houston became their home in 1950. Her attentions turned to full time mother and homemaker after children entered their lives. Throughout the years, many organizations and clubs enjoyed her generosity and leadership including The American Red Cross, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Baylor Wives, Harris County Medical Society Women’s Auxiliary, E.O. Lovett P.T.O., Campfire Girls, and Meyerland Little League Moms. She became a grandmother in 1981, thereafter to be known affectionately as “Rubba” by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And he, their beloved “Daddy Bill”. The couple remained devoted to one another and inseparable for 56 years until his death the 24th of May 2000.

She will always be remembered for the pride she took in raising a family, the pleasure she brought to many with her love of cooking, her tremendous vocabulary and love of books, her knowledge of current politics and steadfast opinions. But most of all, for her love of music which led her to a most perfect destiny.

She is survived by her daughter, Mary Cantrell Soto and husband, Omar; son, William Robert (Bob) Cantrell and loyal grand-dog, “Tuffy”; grandchildren, Molly May and Dustin Mayer; great-grandchildren Jasper, Parker, and Scarlett Mayer. She is also survived by her brothers, Dan S. Hobbs and Jerry Hobbs; sisters, Jane Davis and Lynda Pence; sisters-in-law, Kathleen Teel and Elizabeth Flamm, and an immense family of loving nieces and nephews.

Friends are cordially invited to a visitation with her family from five o’clock in the afternoon until seven o’clock in the evening on Friday, the 24th of April at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive, in Houston. The funeral service will be conducted at eleven o’clock in the morning on Saturday, the 25th of April in the Jasek Chapel at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons with the Reverend James C. McGill of Christ Church Cathedral officiating. A private burial will follow at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery. In lieu of the customary remembrances, the family requests memorials in her honor to be made to the charity of your choice.