Joyce Parker Goforth

 

Joyce Parker Goforth

September 2, 1921 – January 17, 2014

Joyce Nadine Parker Goforth was born September 2, 1921 in Coleman County, Texas, the eldest of five children, to parents who were farmers and small business owners.  She grew up a West Texas farm girl and could recall riding a horse out to bring in their few cows, preferring to ride bareback rather than walk, for fear of rattlesnakes.  Her childhood nickname was “Tot” – a name used now by her grandchildren.  Her parents, Everette Lee Roy Parker and Myrtle Odom Parker, were part of an extended family of Parkers and Odoms and Depews in the area. During a hospitalization at age eight, impressed with the starched white nurses’ uniforms, Joyce decided to become a nurse herself.  She attended nursing school at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, graduating just as America entered World War II.  She was commissioned an officer in the Navy Nurse Corp, and after some time training on the west coast, and meeting Ensign Foy Goforth at Balboa Park in San Diego, she served caring for hospitalized servicemen’s children in San Diego and the Hawaiian Islands.  She was there in 1945 when the Japanese surrender was announced, and, she said “all Hawaii lit up on that dark night”. After the war Joyce and Foy married at Baptist Church in Coleman.  They then proceeded east for graduate school, studying at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and then Iowa State University; she finished with a Masters in Childhood Development.  They both believed strongly in education, and all their lives kept a large library, pursuing education and travel in retirement. Returning to Wilson, near Foy’s home in Elm City, she served as the superintendent of nurses at Woodard-Herring Hospital, later serving on the board of the Wilson School of Nursing for twelve years.  She briefly taught Home Economics at Charles L. Coon High School, and went on to teach Nurses’ Aides at Wilson County Technical Institute.  Above all she was proudest of being a Registered Nurse. As with many of Greatest Generation, Joyce gave greatly to the community.  She volunteered her time (and supported her husband’s own volunteer efforts through what was then known as “the Ladies Auxiliary”) to a variety of organizations: the First Baptist Church, the Boys Scouts of America, the American Legion and 40&8 , Kiwanis, the Jaycees, and others.  As some of these organizations opened entirely to women she became a member in her own right.  Even late in life she mentored children through the Reading Is Fundamental literacy program, and volunteered at the Country Doctor Museum in Bailey.  Her wartime uniform and foot locker have become part of the Art of Nursing Exhibit at the Country Doctor Museum.  Many of her books and one large painting went to the Wilson Country Public Library, where she and her family always had library cards, and used them. Joyce is survived by her sons, Foy Nelson Goforth, Jr. of Denver, CO and John Parker Goforth and wife, Pamela Mason of Kinston; and by John’s two children, Anna Parker Goforth and Sarah Goforth Edwards and husband, Jared. The family will receive friends 10 a.m. Saturday, January 25, 2014 in the library at First Baptist Church in Wilson, followed by a graveside service at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Elm City. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the First Baptist Church, PO Box 1467, Wilson, NC  27894 or the East Carolina Council of the Boy Scouts of America, PO Box 1698, Kinston, NC  28503. Condolences may be directed to www.joyners.net.