Joyce Hope Heeremans

BOXFORD, Mass. - Joyce Hope Heeremans, 76, the city editor of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune in 1988 and a long-time resident of Boxford, died Saturday, in the Falmouth Hospital.

She worked for the Eagle-Tribune for 14 years before retiring in 1992. Dan Warner, who was editor of the Eagle-Tribune at the time of the Pulitzer award, upon learning of her death, said, ''She was a great newswoman. She started out as a town correspondent and became city editor and later editorial page editor._

Some of the young bucks in the newsroom thought she was just a nice lady from Boxford, but she was a really good, professional newswoman.”

Joyce was born in Providence, R.I. and was the daughter of the late Veth Hope.

She was a 1953 graduate of Mount Holyoke College and was married for 53 years to James H. Heeremans of Falmouth.

Joyce lived in Boxford for 41 years. Recently she lived at the Decatur House in Sandwich._

For many years she was a board member of the Topsfield-Boxford League of Women Voters.

She taught reading to illiterate adults and volunteered in service to the needy in Lawrence.

Joyce loved nature, the arts and was an avid photographer and bird watcher. She studied watercolor painting and traveled extensively.

''Joyce was an admirable person in so many ways, a talented journalist, with impeccable good taste and tact, who saw the world clearly and met its challenges with courage and creativity. Despite her many outside commitments, her family always was her top interest and priority. She was a loving, constant and considerate friend and all of us who were close to her will miss her presence in our lives,” said Selma Williams of Topsfield, a longtime friend.

She is survived by, in addition to her husband, three daughters, Cynthia Greer, of N.C.; Susan Lunn of Marion, Mass.; and Rebecca Heeremans of Calif.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, Oct. 6, at 1 p.m. at the First Congregational Church UCC, 68 Main Street, in Falmouth.

Memorial contributions in her honor may be sent to the Alzheimer's Association, 225 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60601-7653.

Arrangements by the Chapman, Cole & Gleason Funeral Home of Falmouth. For directions, obituary or online guestbook please visit, www.ccgfuneralhome.com.