Joyce Ann Peck

Born: December 2, 1939, Hollywood, CA
Died: July 2, 2023, Bloomfield Hills, MI
LOVING WIFE, MOTHER, SISTER, and FRIEND
Joyce Peck, loving wife to John and mother to David, John (Rona), and Ellen, passed away peacefully in her home following a long illness. She leaves behind a legacy of kindness, compassion, generosity, and faith.
Joyce was born Joyce Ann MacDonald to Clara and William MacDonald on December 2, 1939. As an active child, she could often be found planting things in the yard, riding her bike down the neighborhood hill with her little sister, June, playing any sport she could, going horseback riding, and occasionally accompanying her father to work on movie sets. She admired her father greatly and inherited his curious mind, intelligence, and work ethic. Although Joyce harbored dreams of becoming an archaeologist, practicality told her that nursing would offer her a steady career. She attended UCLA and graduated with her BSN in 1961. She began her career at the UCLA Hospital in the OB-GYN unit and was quickly promoted to Supervisor. As fate would have it, one of her patients introduced her to a nice young man she knew, an engineer from Michigan named John Peck. John and Joyce were married in Santa Monica, California in 1965. Three children followed: David (1967-2001), John (1969) and Ellen (1973). Starting their family meant putting her nursing career on hold, but she would return to it later.
In 1976, John's company transferred him back to Michigan. After a few years of settling in, Joyce decided to return to work and landed in the mental health care setting. She worked as a nurse, then Nursing Supervisor, at Woodside Hospital and Havenwyck Hospital, both in Pontiac, then spent 20 years at Neighborhood Service Organization in Detroit. She was part of the nursing staff – and later, supervisor – for NSO's Older Adult Services division, where she oversaw the care of older mental patients in group homes around Metro Detroit. Joyce's dedication to excellence earned her the respect of colleagues and trust of her patients. She insisted on the highest possible standards while treating everyone she met with gentle kindness, good humor, and compassion. She cared deeply about her patients and made sure that their needs came first. To her colleagues, she was a trusted leader, sounding board, teacher, and confidante.
Joyce had great faith in God and an optimistic worldview. Those qualities were put to the ultimate test when her beloved son, David, was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 33 and suffered serious complications from chemotherapy. John and Joyce had to make the heartbreaking decision to do hospice care at home. Joyce took on David's care with incredible strength and the same meticulous attention to his needs that she showed her patients. When David passed away several months later, her faith in a higher purpose sustained her through her grief.
When Joyce wasn't working, she enjoyed several creative hobbies, including photography, crocheting, and, above all, gardening. She loved to take pictures of flowers and nature scenes, but also found delight in unusual sights, such as the striking graffiti outside her office window in Detroit. She loved to share her pictures with friends, putting them on greeting cards and coasters in addition to frames. She began crocheting at a very early age and made beautiful blankets for friends, family, and, for several years, cancer patients at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and a few assisted living facilities. Joyce also loved to travel; her most memorable trips were a two-month South Seas cruise with three of her friends from Nursing school, three trips to London (two with Ellen and one with her close friends), and many trips to whatever town Ellen was working in as a theatrical stage manager. But Joyce's true "happy place" was the garden. She tended several gardens around her home and was proudest of her many hostas and her butterfly garden. For several summers in a row, Joyce turned the dining room into a butterfly incubator, bringing monarch caterpillars inside to make a safe place for them to grow and transform before releasing them back out into the wild. After retiring at 73, Joyce fulfilled a longtime dream to become a Master Gardener though the Michigan State University Extension program. She volunteered many hours in community gardens and took great pride in her own.
In addition to her immediate family, Joyce leaves behind her sister, June (Dennis), brothers-in-law, Richard (Liz), Michael (Michellene), Robert (Sue), sister-in-law Joanne (Ed), nieces Diane Finegold (Brian), Karen Kramer Gwartz (Adam), Peggy Jorden, Janet Korth (Tom), Nancy Hege (widow of Bob), and Bernadette Littlefield (Joe), and nephews Eddie Kramer, Richard Peck (Gail), and Matthew Naebers. Joyce's many friends and extended family will miss her loving and gentle spirit, generosity, warmth, and joy in the simplest pleasures of life.
Family will receive friends Friday, July 7, 2023, 2-8pm, at A.J. Desmond & Sons (Vasu, Rodgers & Connell Chapel) 32515 Woodward Ave. (btwn 13-14 Mile), Royal Oak. Funeral Mass Saturday, July 8, 2023, 10am at St. Hugo of the Hills Stone Chapel, 2215 Opdyke Rd., Bloomfield Hills. Visitation at church begins 9:30am. Inurnment at St. Hugo of the Hills Columbarium following Mass.
In lieu of flowers, Joyce's family asks that you make donations to the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit and the MSU Extension Master Gardener Program.