Joyce Geraldine Clark Baker

The youngest of three, Joyce grew up with her parents Harvey and Annie Clark, brother Bob and sister Betty on Rutland Avenue in Detroit. Although times were sometimes tough during the Depression, her childhood was a full and happy one, replete with a collection of rescued animals. A great joy of Joyce's youth was the annual summer trip to Aunt Edna's cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan. Joyce was an open thinker with a life-long interest in progressive causes. After earning Bachelor and Master degrees from the University of Michigan, Joyce was an active member of Central Methodist Church in Detroit. Under the leadership of Henry Hitt Crane, Central Methodist Church voiced a call for racial unity at a time of segregation and social unrest. A signal event in Joyce's life was her opportunity to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in the late 1950s, and to meet with him as one of a small integrated group of activists. Representative of the importance that Joyce placed on commonality and unity was her rebellious gesture of flying the flag of the United Nations above the stars and stripes. That she lived long enough to see the election of a woman as Vice-President of the United States was a joy to her, and a consolation to us. The American flag that Joyce had refused to fly following the 2016 election went back up just weeks ago. In addition to shaping her political views, Central Methodist was the source of another important event in Joyce's life: it was there that she met a handsome fellow member of the congregation named Henry Baker. Along with their political orientation, Henry and Joyce shared a deep interest in arts of all kinds. It would be almost impossible to count the number of plays, operas, ballet performances, concerts, exhibitions, and art openings that they attended during their 61 year marriage. Joyce was awed and inspired by nature. Her fascination with monarch butterflies was so relentless it became a kind of family joke - "Look, Mom! Is that a monarch?!"; she adored tortoises; and she never tired of watching the seals and pelicans and the playful canines at Dog Beach on her daily seaside walk. She was amazed and moved by the beauty and complexity of the world around her, and, as much as she loved the arts, rightfully found little of human creation as exquisite as the view of the ocean from West Cliff Drive. Joyce loved children, both in the specific and the abstract. Nothing made her happier than watching her two daughters - Bethany and Alysson - five grandchildren - Hannah, Amelia, Theo, Tobias, and Gabriel - and her two great-grandchildren - Charlotte and Noah - grow and thrive. She founded Johnny Crow's Garden in 1966, and the nursery school has been a much-loved childhood experience for over a thousand Santa Cruz children - and some of their children. Joyce was a firm believer in a free and playful childhood, spent outside as much as possible. A child should wear clothes (preferably from Goodwill) that can get covered in sawdust, cookie dough, clay, paint, and most of all, mud. Joyce had a great trust in nature and in the wisdom of mother earth. She was an early advocate of a healthy diet and shunned medications in favor of the healing power of the body. She died exactly as she would have wished: at home, peacefully, and with no fuss at all. Joyce will be affectionately remembered and greatly missed. Although her physical presence is gone, here's to Joyce - mother, lover, teacher, artist, friend - who will reside and abide within us.