Goodbye my friend, Joyce Sherwin
Joyce Sherwin, left, with Downey Symphony Orchestra music director Sharon Lavery.
DOWNEY – Joyce Sherwin lived in Downey for well over 50 years, and normally could be seen with her feet on the ground. But just three months ago, in June, Joyce went parasailing, for the eighth time in her life.
She had sailed in Maui and Tahiti, and this time, for her birthday, she invited her children and grandchildren to come along. She soared over the Long Beach skyline, and then touched down safe and dry in the boat.
“It is quiet,” said Joyce, “the eyes love the spaciousness of the sea viewed so close, and it is so joyous.”
Last week, Joyce sailed into that quiet space again, and this time she did not come back down. Joyce Sherwin was 94.
Several years ago Joyce won the bid for the conductor’s baton, and conducted the Downey Symphony Orchestra in Seventy-six Trombones, the march from The Music Man, written by land-locked Mason City, Iowa native Meredith Wilson. That’s Joyce’s hometown too.
And now we have lost Mason City’s finest and fairest.
Others will be writing about the many facets of Joyce’s long full life, but I knew her as an advocate of the arts.
“Her energy and radiant smile lit up the Downey Theatre lobbies at every concert,” said Sharon Lavery, Music Director for the Downey Symphonic Society. “She worked meticulously behind the scenes in making sure the Downey Symphony was an unforgettable musical experience for all.”
“What’s your job tonight?” I once asked DSS Board member Cindy Kovach, who was stationed at the door to the banquet room at the 60th Anniversary Celebration for the Downey Symphonic Society.
“I’m on Joyce’ team,” said Cindy, “and Joyce told me to get here early and hand out programs. We spent weeks planning this day, and I do whatever Joyce says.”
The idea for that 60th anniversary celebration was Joyce’s, and she also spearheaded a dinner party for 60 that was held on the huge stage of the Downey Theatre.
Joyce enjoyed big events, planning them with meticulous detail and a minute-by minute time table. Her committee meetings for the concerts by the Downey Symphony Orchestra, held in her home, were always well attended because Joyce promised a scrumptious dessert for all. Result, events flowed smoothly, and the lobby of the Downey Theatre pulsed with patrons and greeters at the start of each concert, when the Downey Symphony Orchestra performed.
All those receptions after the concert on the Theater’s patio were Joyce’s projects too, and she would cajole board members into bringing home-baked cookies and donating champagne. The receptions will continue, in her spirit, but the preparations just won’t be the same.
And this doesn’t begin to cover Joyce as a warm and thoughtful friend…
Joyce was a longtime member and generous supporter of the Board of Directors of the Downey Symphonic Society, and as an active and contributing member of the DSS’s support group, the Guild. She also enjoyed supporting the Whittier Bel Canto Choir.
Music was a big part of Joyce’s life and she had a beautiful alto singing voice. One year her most prized Christmas present was tickets to the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s sing-along performance of Handel’s Messiah, complete with the full libretto so she could join with the Orchestra and voices in the Hallelujah Chorus.
Not only did Joyce love music, she supported all the arts, and the Downey Arts Coalition. For six years she faithfully attended all the evening poetry readings for DAC’s Poetry Matters series, at all the venues, from the Rives Mansion to Epic Lounge and the Stay Gallery. She hosted a reading in her garden of my book of poems “Catalina Eddy,” and served her famous lemonade punch and cookies.
She was also a long-time supporter of Hidden Valley Music Seminars, an Institute of the Arts in Carmel Valley, California. HVMS recently dedicated ‘Jerce Circle’ in her honor and there is a plaque on a large rock there inscribed with her name.
One example of Joyce’s love for the beautiful and the unusual was an absolutely unique evening she hosted one summer when the egrets came to Downey. The tallest tree on the block was in Joyce’s front yard, and she invited a few lucky friends to come at twilight when the egrets came to the tree to roost.
We were provided with lawn chairs and our choice of warm fluffy scarves because the evenings could run cool, and some wooden noisemakers. Joyce through maybe their rasping would sound like another egret to the birds. As dusk came on, they arrived from the river bed. They circled the tree and gradually settled into the branches, tucking their knobby legs into neat small white bundles.
We sat there as the evening deepened, as if nothing in the world were more important than trying to make contact with beauty from another world.
In an open letter to Joyce’s friends announcing her mother’s passing, her daughter Linden spoke for herself and siblings Pinky and Laird, when she said, “She lived a full, long life that we are grateful for, and we thank each and every one of you for enriching it, in so many ways.”