Sr. Joy was born in Pulaski, Virginia to Herbert and Ernestine Hall on March 31, 1945, and grew up on the family farm. Sr. Joy graduated from Pulaski High and went on to receive her BS in Health and Physical Education at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. She then received a Certificate in Physical Therapy from the Medical Field Service School at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonia, Texas.
From 1969 to 1971 she served her country in the US Army Medical Specialist Corps. For the next two years Sr. Joy joined the Christian Service Corps and served with the Africa Evangelical Fellowship establishing a physical therapy department at Luampa Mission Hospital in Zambia.
Sr. Joy is survived by her three sisters Patricia Guthrie and her husband, Weston; Barbara Byron (her husband Jack is deceased); and Deborah Kelley and her husband, Nathaniel; by her nephews and nieces David, Rebecca, Joshua, Cathy, Mark, Peter, and Kimberly; and by many great-nephews and great-nieces.
Having moved from Boston to the Community of Jesus, an ecumenical, Benedictine Community on Cape Cod 1979, Sr. Joy became a vowed Sister in August of 1980. She held many responsibilities in the Community and within the Sisterhood, but she will be remembered most as the consummate carver both of wood and stone and the patient teacher of many other would-be carvers. Her largest project, one that consumed her time and energy for the past ten years, was to lead a team in carving figures of all the saints in the Community’s sanctoral cycle, fifty-three in all, thirty-four now completed. These life-size, bas-relief sculptures, when finished, will completely line the walls of the Community cloister.
The funeral service will be held at the Church of the Transfiguration at the Community of Jesus on Tuesday, June 5 at 11 AM. The burial will follow in the Orleans Cemetery. In lieu of flowers please send memorial gifts to the Community of Jesus, 5 Bay View Dr., Orleans, MA 02653.
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