Joyce H. Browning |
| Posted 2020-12-27 by mhenderson |
| Published by Arizona Daily Sun on Dec. 8, 2020 - Flagstaff, Arizona - On November 19th, 2020 our beloved mother passed away after a brief illness. She died at home surrounded by those who loved her the most, her children. Joyce was born on April 25, 1931 in Memphis, Tennessee. From a very early age she had a passion for books and reading that she passed along to her children and that lasted to the very end of her life. Her homes were always full of shelves overflowing with books of every kind that she loved to talk about and share with anybody who was interested. From her reading, she gained an appreciation and understanding of this amazing and beautiful world we live in, and it troubled her greatly that human beings aren't taking better care of it. Joyce had a love for travel that began at an early age when, as a teenager, she set sail for Panama with her mother and brother aboard a cargo/passenger ship, to live for a year where her Dad was working as a mechanic in the Civil Service. It still makes us smile recalling her stories of life in the Canal Zone, especially the one about riding around on the back of a Harley with her Army Private boyfriend. She loved a good road trip and embarked on many throughout her life mostly to visit friends in Alberta or relatives in Tennessee, or just to see someplace new, and once because she was a diehard Jimmy Buffet Fan, a solo jaunt across country to see Key West and have a drink at the Margaritaville Cantina. In the late 1940s her family moved west to live in Arizona, traveling along Old Route 66 for most of the way. Joyce eventually made her way down to Tucson where she rode horses, studied geology, and took flying lessons, earning a pilot's license before she was twenty. It was there a few years later that she met Tom Browning in a cowboy bar and not too long after, they were married by a Justice of the Peace in Catron County, New Mexico. A year or so later they found a 5 acre parcel of land with a small house and some fruit trees on the outskirts of Tucson where they settled in and raised four children, various cats and dogs, horses, the occasional billy goat, chickens, ferrets and a hamster or two. Her love for animals lasted her entire life and much later on Joyce and her daughter Sheril even raised an orphaned baby skunk who they named Daisy. In 1970 the family (minus the critters) moved to Kingston, Jamaica where Tom was working to modernize the telephone system, and for three years they explored and enjoyed that tropical paradise. Upon returning home to Arizona, Joyce went back to work for GMAC, continued raising her kids (and more critters) and then took over caring for our Dad for the last several years of his life after he suffered a debilitating aneurysm. After Tom died in 1992, Joyce decided it was time to see more of the world and in the company of a family friend who lived on the island of Mallorca, she spent several months traveling thru Spain, Portugal, France and the U.K., especially Scotland and Ireland where our family has roots. Shortly after returning home, Joyce sold the Tucson property and bought a house in Flagstaff next door to her son Shawn, where she lived the rest of her life. Joyce loved Flagstaff for its natural setting, nearby mountains, and its cooler climate, and she wasted no time immersing herself in the community. For years, she volunteered as a tutor for Literacy Volunteers teaching adult students of all ages how to read and write english, because she viewed the ability to read as an essential skill and a pathway to enrich ones life. She liked book clubs and discussion groups, as well as writing letters to the editor, for which she was mildly famous, at least amongst her children and their friends. Joyce was an open minded agnostic who while not religious herself, deeply respected the right of all people to believe in whatever they wished. She trusted and believed in science and it pleased her to think that after she was gone the particles that had come together to make her would quietly disassemble and go off to make someone or something else. She would definitely not want anybody to spend too much time mourning her passing, but instead to celebrate her life. With that in mind, we hope to have a small gathering for friends and family sometime in the spring or summer when things settle down and its safer for people to get together. Joyce is survived by her children Allison Browning (Harlan), Sharon Cardella (Ron), Sheril Hjelseth, son Shawn Browning , stepdaughter Jody Clement, brother David Harrison (Betty), and numerous nieces and nephews,cousins, step grandchildren and great grandchildren, her dogs Peanut and Riley and Granddog Daisy. |
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