Eagle Point Senior Center

Our Senior of the Month is Joyce Beeney.  Joyce is a “fixture” down at the Senior Center and we are glad that she is among our circle of friends.  Joyce was born in 1941 in Bellevue, Ohio.  She is the third of 6 children.  Joyce has two older brothers and one younger brother and she has two half-sisters who are both younger than Joyce.  Joyce was 9 years old when her mother remarried and that union resulted in the two younger daughters.  Joyce took care of the house while Mom took care of the babies.  The family did not have a farm but lived next door to a farm and those kids would play in the barn, as long as there were no cows in there!

Joyce was a “Daddy’s Girl” and when he and her Mom got divorced, he moved to Arizona.  Joyce grew up and married.  She also developed bronchitis and had a very difficult time with her health in Ohio.  Her Dad, and the doctors, thought it would be a good thing if she moved to Arizona to improve her ability to breathe.  Her husband thought she should be gone no more than a week and when she stayed longer, he filed for divorce claiming desertion.  She had to send the kids (her son was 6 and her daughters were 4 and 5) home to Ohio and it was the hardest thing she has ever done.  She has been married three times, divorced twice and widowed once.

She did get a high school education and graduated.  She has failed to turn in her Senior Class Essay and was sure she would not get a signed diploma but she did and is a certified home health care-giver.  Joyce is work brittle and conscientious.  She has been on her own for most of her life and has always had a job and maintained her own home.  She worked at Motorola for 17 years and she worked at the Pony Soldier near Fred Meyer for a couple of years.  Otherwise, she has been in the business of caring for folks who cannot care for themselves.  She cared for her step-mother and actually saved her life.  She found her hemorrhaging quite severely and was able to get her the help that she needed to survive.  Her step-mother resented it, as she was an alcoholic, but it was the best thing Joyce ever did.   Joyce maintains, justifiably, that she threw herself into work to save herself from going insane without her children.  The first job she had was at Green Springs Sanitarium which housed folks with tuberculosis.  Her Mom wanted her to be a nurse, and she would have been good at it, but she did not have any Latin and they required Latin at that time.  During her time at Motorola, she rose to the position of Quality Assurance and was managing people.  She liked this job and it was her favorite.

Joyce’s family has many members who served in the military, including several members who were in the Navy and some in the Air Force.

When asked about high points in her life, she says her most interesting escapade was a trip she made in 1979 to the Holy Land.  While there, she traveled to Amsterdam, Jerusalem, Cairo (where she saw King Tut’s Tomb), and the Garden of Gethsemane.  The most impressive part of the trip was walking where Jesus walked as he bore the cross.

Joyce continues to keep occupied.  She currently loves working at the Upper Rogue Independent and she really likes Dan and Laura Mancusco, the owners/editors.  The life lessons she has learned are to do your best, keep no regrets, look to the future and the Golden Rule.  She is looking forward to being 100 but only if she is in good health and able to get around.