Joyce Levenson Tichler

Joyce Levenson Tichler, a longtime resident of Patchogue, New York, who spent her retirement years on Manhattan's Upper West Side, died on December 5, 2022, six months after the passing of her beloved husband of 62 years, Paul "Bob" Tichler, and after a long battle with multiple system atrophy. She was 83 years old.

Joyce was born in Brooklyn in 1939, the only child of immigrant parents, surrounded by a large extended family that she cherished. Throughout her life she loved to share deep and vivid memories of her family and stories of her ancestry. After graduating from Brooklyn's Tilden High School, she went on to Barnard College and Columbia University, where she received bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics. At Barnard, her friend and classmate Rosemarie Tichler introduced her to her brother Bob. Theirs proved to be a lasting relationship.

She was a fierce advocate for her two sons, Carl and Jonathan, during their early school years. Later, once they had gained their firm footing, she returned to work, launching a 30-year career at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her keen intelligence and strong work ethic earned her senior positions as a computer scientist, collecting and analyzing environmental data across multiple sites nationwide, and contributing to the early research on the effects of acid rain. A successful woman professional in a male-dominated field, she brought to the workplace some of the same care and zeal that she showed raising her children and became a valued mentor to many colleagues.

Joyce prized excellence in all areas but was especially drawn to music, theater, and literature, from Alicia de Larrocha to Don McLean, Giacomo Puccini to Stephen Sondheim, T. S. Eliot to John le Carré. Her children shared her passion for the arts. She delighted in attending Carl's piano performances and took great pride in all the Metropolitan Opera's endeavors, because Jonathan worked there.

In her retirement she became an active member of the Upper West Side's Jewish Community Center and served as an alumnae representative for her graduating class at Barnard and as an officer for the Brookhaven Retired Employees' Association.

The kindness of her caregivers Charmaine, Julian, Julianah, Nana, Rokiatou, and Susan helped make the difficult last months of her life more bearable.

She is survived by her son Carl Tichler and his wife, Suzanne Perry; her son Jonathan Tichler and his husband, Arturo Padilla; her sister-in-law, Rosemarie Tichler, and her spouse, Ellen Feinstein; her grandchildren, Andrew and Aleksi Tichler; her nephew, Theodore Feinstein; and her cousin Barbara Arlow.