SPOTLIGHT ON...
Rev. Joyce Alexander
Story written by Pam Anderson
Joyce, then Joyce Berry, grew up in Florence, Alabama, where her parents owned the Chatter Box Cafe, and graduated from Coffee High School in an age of poodle skirts.
She had one sister, Joan, 10 years younger. First feeling a call to ministry at 13, (it was 1956) she was laughed at and told to choose a profession women could do. She chose nursing, attending Carraway Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Birmingham to become a Registered Nurse.
Jim Alexander came into her life the summer she graduated from high school. They were married on her graduation from nursing school. They moved to Washington State, Jim’s home, where their son Rob was born. The family moved back to Florence, and Jim finished his degree in accounting at Florence State University while Joyce worked at the local hospital, as the hospital transitioned from segregation to an integrated facility.
On graduation from Florence State, Jim took a federal job and the family began an odyssey of frequent moves. His first position was at Kennedy Space Center and they lived in Titusville. Their daughter Cary was born at Jess Parrish Memorial hospital. From there they moved to Daytona Beach; Gautier, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; Louisville, Kentucky; and Norcross, Georgia.
Joyce had always intended to complete a degree in nursing. She was able to do so at the University of Louisville, after telling Jim she would not move before completing a BS in Nursing. After moving to Atlanta, working for a time in an ER, Joyce was able to complete the Master of Nursing program at Georgia State University. Feeling her
migration across multiple nursing fields had left her experience spotty, she accepted a position as a staff nurse in Oncology/Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplant at Emory
University Hospital. Although this field was challenging she found it to be her calling - at the time. After a few years as a staff nurse, Joyce moved into a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) position there. A CNS is an on-the-unit specialist who teaches staff and patients, develops policies and procedures, conducts and evaluates research, and is a leader enabling staff to solve problems and provide excellent care. She would serve in that role at Emory for 11 years. In 1993, Joyce had her first bout with breast cancer although at an early stage.
In 1995, Joyce accepted a position to work in a team establishing a bone marrow transplant program at Halifax Hospital. As Jim had been offered early retirement, they moved back to Daytona. Joyce also continued work with the National Oncology Nursing Society. Jim thought he would be happy fishing and tinkering with woodwork, but he was not. They divorced in 1997 and he returned to Washington, where he died in 2006.
Struggling after the divorce, Joyce returned to church, trying several before Rev. Bill Beebe, a chaplain at Halifax, invited her to First UMC, Port Orange. She went on a mission trip with them to Jamaica in 2000, and again in 2001. Her calling to ministry came after that second mission trip.
It was back to school again - commuting to Asbury Theological Seminary in Orlando, while still working. She retired from Halifax in 2006 and was commissioned for ministry in 2007. It was a whole new life! Her first appointment was as Associate at Saint Paul’s UMC in Tallahassee, definitely a learning experience!
She would need all she had learned for her next appointment to Big Pine Key UMC. The Keys have a culture all their own - it was a mission field, and a church in need of healing. Ordained in 2011, Joyce was at Big Pine for 6 1/2 years, and learned to love the Keys and the people.
Retiring from ministry in 2016, Joyce came back to Port Orange. She had a second bout with breast cancer in 2020. In retirement, she enjoys time with her daughter and grandson, who live in South Daytona, traveling with her daughter, visiting her son in Atlanta, meeting with the CCM team at Coronado, doing the menu board for the Colors of Hunger team each month, having brunch with church friends on Sundays, working jigsaw puzzles, and having time to read a novel. She has rediscovered her love of painting. She has two grandchildren: Cary’s son Tyler is in South Daytona, and Rob’s daughter, Morgan, is a Sophomore at Auburn University.
