Mary Brenda Joyner

Mary Brenda was born on February 2, 1947, in Luray, Virginia, the daughter of Cecil James Payne and Mary Virginia (Fuller) Payne. She grew up in Luray until her family moved to Suffolk, Virginia, when she was in the tenth grade. She was a 1965 graduate of Suffolk High School and received the Bachelor of Arts from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, in 1970.

On December 21, 1968, in Suffolk, she married William Henry Joyner, Jr. They lived in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for five years, when she worked as a benefits assistant for Harvard University. In 1973 they moved to New York. There, she was a volunteer at the Katonah Elementary School, on the board of the Youth Counseling League of New York, a member of the Hopp Ground Garden Club, and assistant to the director of the Katonah Museum of Art, while raising her children.

Mary Brenda was treasured at the Katonah Museum of Art for being the sole person who could do everything: fix the copier, unload art works from trucks, do massive mailings, and know who everyone was and treat them with respect, kindness, and good cheer. She particularly enjoyed greeting and entertaining visiting artists, and became friendly with Ralph Fasanella, Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Jacob Lawrence. Upon her departure the Board presented her with a “weeping bowl,” because they would shed tears when she was no longer there to help them.

The Joyner family moved to North Carolina in 1998. There, Mary Brenda was a member of the altar guild at the Chapel of the Cross, on the board of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill (of which she was president in 2007), and a member of the secretive Society of the Silver Swans, a group of Chapel Hill women who gave parties for each other on their birthdays. As a desk volunteer at the Chapel of the Cross, she was known for greeting everyone cheerfully and keeping the bowl of peppermints on the desk full. She served for many years as a registration assistant at the ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference at sites throughout the US.

She was a volunteer “oldie” for the Episcopal Campus Ministry, making many trips for University of North Carolina students between Chapel Hill and the airport. She made a place in her home for students to study and rest and stay, baked them brownies, and helped to brighten their days. One former UNC student said that she was “a foundation of support for generations of UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduates . . . her presence in a room came to mean a chance to catch one's breath and know that you are loved and cared for.”

Mary Brenda kept her name until first grade, when her teacher insisted that she had too many students to bother with double names. She therefore went by “Brenda” through elementary and high school, college, and her time in Massachusetts and New York. When she returned to the south in 1998, she rejoiced at reclaiming her traditional name.

She took great pride in her collections of North Carolina pottery, baskets, and her Department 56 Christmas houses, which everyone called “the villages.” The villages were always on display at her Christmas open house in Chapel Hill, where she was so happy to entertain over 100 guests with ham biscuits, barbecue, and whiskey sours.

Mary Brenda was unfailingly kind to everyone she met, and a true southern lady. She always wore dresses, never pants, and admonished her husband and son, whenever going out, that “a tie is never wrong.” She adored her children and grandchildren and lit up when she was around them. She loved driving, and drove in all 50 states, and across Costa Rica from the Pacific to the Caribbean.

She is survived by her husband, William, of Crozet; her children, Mary Holland Joyner (and husband William Scott Scherman) of Washington, DC, and Andrew William Joyner (and wife Elizabeth Terry Joyner) of Crozet; grandchildren Emma Holland Scherman, Scott Payne Scherman, Thomas Henry Joyner, William Terry Joyner, and Sadie Carolyn Holland Joyner; and a sister, Cecilia Ann Payne. The family appreciates very much the care she received from Dr. Binit Shah and the neurology team at UVA Health, from the staff at RoseWood Village at Hollymead, and from the clergy and people of St. Paul’s Memorial Church.

A vigil with prayers and visitation will be held at St. Paul’s Memorial Church, Charlottesville, on Tuesday, September 30, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. Her funeral will be at 10:30 am on Friday, October 3, at the Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, followed by burial in the churchyard and a reception. Those wishing to make memorial contributions are invited to consider the Chapel of the Cross (www.thechapelofthecross.org), St. Paul’s Memorial Church at the University of Virginia (www.spmcuva.org), and the Parkinson's Activity and Resource Center (www.the-parc.org).