Joyce Ann Meyer

Joyce Ann Meyer December 24, 1932 - December 5, 2009 Joyce Ann Meyer, aged 76, ended her year-long struggle with small cell lung cancer and pneumonia in peace, surrounded by her family and loved ones, in her home in Twilight Park. Joyce grew up in Michigan with her parents, Effie and Harry Garey, and older brother Barre. Ever the tom boy and music enthusiast, Joyce spent memorable summers, playing bassoon and clarinet, at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan (later to become The Interlochen Center for the Arts) where students come from every state in the USA, and over forty countries. While Joyce was still in High School, Dr. Joseph Maddy, who had founded the National Music Camp in 1927, and also directed the Ann Arbor Civic Orchestra, arranged for her to play principal bassoon in the Ann Arbor Civic Orchestra, as its youngest member. She went on to attend the University of Michigan, where she studied music and played clarinet in the University Marching Band. Joyce moved to Brooklyn Heights in 1952, where she would live for most of her adult life, and where she was introduced to her future husband, Bernhard. She and Bernie married in 1958 at the historic Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, where Joyce sang in the choir and had been a member of the Board of Deacons while still in her early twenties. Together, they raised three children on Willow Street, and were fixtures of the neighborhood for almost four decades. In addition to raising three kids, Joyce dedicated a great deal of time fundraising for St. Ann's School, which each of her children attended for twelve years, running the school store and warehouse, in the 1970s, and assisting at the annual fund raising auction. Her business acumen was instrumental in helping to establish the Meyer children's mobile coffee and lemonade stand at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Spring and Fall Art Shows. The proceeds financed the children's visits to relatives in Arizona and Europe. As the children got older, Joyce worked for about a month each year, for a textbook publisher, arranging tours of the fashion industry, for fashion merchandising students, who came to New York from all over the country. In 1981, Joyce and Bernie purchased Brookwood, their "dream home" in the Northern Catskills, after visiting friends, who owned a house in Twilight Park. As with the apartment in Brooklyn, Brookwood fast became a gathering spot for many of the children in Twilight, hosting marathon (sometimes all night) games of Assassin, Risk, and Dungeons and Dragons. Over the years, Joyce spent most weekends and summers transforming the bramble-covered, almost four acres, into the magnificent property it is today. Her work was recognized with the Garden Club's Silver Trowel Award a decade ago, though she continued to work on perfecting the grounds. The last years of her life were spent tending to her gardens and hosting visits from family and friends. Joyce is survived by her husband Bernhard, brother Barre of Alma, Michigan, children, Christoph, a spine surgeon living in Houston, Texas, Jane, a lawyer living in Brooklyn Heights with her husband, Donald Wolfson, and children Alexander and Julia, and Rob, a real estate developer living in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Kim and children, Aidan and Callan. Fred Burnham has agreed to officiate at a memorial service for Joyce, early this summer, at All Angels Church, in Twilight Park, where her ashes will be buried. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to The Community Hospice of Columbia/Greene County, 47 Liberty Street, Catskill, NY 12414. Please be sure to note that the donation is being made "in Memory of Joyce A. Meyer." Credit card donations may also be made by calling Maureen Timan at 518-943-5402, ext.137.