EVANSTON — Joyce Casey was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on Oct. 9, 1930. Her parents were Marie Buckles Mead and Johnnie Mead. Joyce is now 87 years of age and resides in Evanston.

Born during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Joyce’s childhood was one of little money, lots of family living together in small quarters and, ultimately, WWII. However, she has fond memories of her and her cousins and aunts (who were her same age) using their imagination to play.

They had games of jacks, roller skates, played house with dolls, kick the can and hide and seek. Children today have too much, she said, too many toys and too much technology.

“However, I probably would have had more things if we could have afforded them,” she said. “We had no outside entertainment, no TV, no cellphones or computers then. We had to make up our own entertainment. We rarely went to movies and I never read movie magazines. I did envy Shirley Temple because she had curls and I didn’t. I did go to the library a lot and I read books voraciously.”

When Joyce was 6 years old, her father left the family on the pretext of finding work in California. He never returned, leaving her pregnant mother to raise her children alone. Joyce’s baby sister, Mary Jo, had died of pneumonia when Joyce was 2. There had been no money for doctors or funerals and baby Mary Jo was buried on what was called “baby’s row” in the Hutchinson cemetery.

Joyce’s mother Marie had to move out of the Mead home, where there were already too many mouths to feed and her grandmother Irene Mead was the only one with a job. They ate what Irene could bring home from the discarded food at the grocery store where she worked.

Joyce’s mother moved them to her father’s home and they lived there so her mother could go to work. Marie worked in a nightclub run by Al Pyatt and a relationship developed between them. When Joyce was 9 years old, her mother married Al and they moved to Garden City, Kansas. 

As she grew up and became a teenager (not a word even used then) she babysat to earn money. She charged 10 cents an hour and eventually earned 25 cents an hour.

“Kids today would never work for those low wages,” Joyce said with a laugh, “but it was a lot to me then.”

When she was 16, she worked as a clerk at a local drug store after school. As a teen, she frequented the swimming pool in Garden City. It was free and the largest outdoor pool in the U.S. at that time. It was, as most pools in those days were, segregated.

When asked about school, Joyce replied that she loved school. Her favorite subjects were music, English, reading and history. She played the viola and was very good at it. She also “played around at piano” but was not very good at it. Her least favorite subject was math.

The U.S. was heavily involved in WWII, and gas rationing was enforced when Joyce was in high school so there was very little traveling for sports or other activities. Girls had physical education, but had no formal sports programs. 

Joyce graduated in 1948. The war was over, and the U.S. was rebuilding. After graduation, she went to one semester at a small college, she said, but then she met Ed Casey. He worked at the radio station which Al Pyatt had built and which was on the property where they lived. 

One day Joyce was trying to get a horse back in the pasture it had escaped from — Ed saw her struggle and came to her rescue. The rest is history.

They were married in 1949, and for 35 years, Joyce was a full-time homemaker. Together they raised six children — four girls and two boys. Joyce said she loved being a homemaker and mother. She sewed all of the kids’ clothes, cooked all their meals and kept a neat and orderly house. Ed had been a pilot in WWII, and during their marriage he was an electronic technician with the Federal Aviation Agency for 25 years.

In 1984, Ed suffered a heart attack and died. Joyce was only 54 years old, and she had little experience working outside the home. So she went back to school at Kansas City Kansas Community College and majored in music, graduating cum laude.

Joyce said she’s glad that she got as much of an extended education as she did, as it helped her get a paid job in a Baptist church. She was the choir director. She said she loved how it helped her learn how to deal with many different personalities. 

Later, she was employed with Merry Maids, cleaning houses.

“It was much fun,” she said. “One thing I discovered was that the majority of rich people had neat houses but horrible bed pillows.”

She said she also worked at a Hallmark store. She liked that, too, but one day when she was at work, she looked outside at an ice storm and snow and knew she was going to have a treacherous drive home. She asked herself, “Why am I living here in Kansas with the horrible winter ice and my allergies in the summer?”

That’s when she decided to sell her house and leave. Her children were all raised, married and had careers and families of their own.

Joyce chose to move to Evanston, because her widowed mother lived here, along with other family members. She came to Evanston in 1989, and has never regretted it. She has many friends here, belongs to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, attends a library book group, is active in a quilt group and invites other women to her home once a week to sew together.

She keeps busy with those activities and making beautiful handmade and handquilted items.

“I have never sold one because no one would want to pay for the hours that it takes to complete one. Besides, my family members put dibs on my quilts even before they are finished,” she said with a laugh. 

When asked if there is anything she would do differently in her life she answered that she wishes she would have stayed in college at 19. However, she added, there just wasn’t enough money anyway and people didn’t have the option of grants from the government then.

Her advice to young people today is, “Get an education, stay in school and go to college. Turn off the computer, put down the cellphone and pick up a book and read it. It is wonderful to hold a book and turn the pages. Gain knowledge.”

Joyce said crime hasn’t changed much over her lifetime; there’s not more violence today than when she grew up, she said.

“The media just makes it seem like there is because there are 24-hour news stories and there are more people,” she said.

There is no television in Joyce’s home and she said she keeps her blood pressure down by not listening to too much news. She said she is concerned about the greed and lack of empathy of people in power; it seems to her that all they want is more money and more power.

Although she said the future looks bright as there are wonderful advances in science and medicine. 

“Who ever thought I’d have a computer in my chest,” she said. (She recently had a pacemaker installed). “Why, if I am still alive when they colonize Mars, I will jump at the chance to go. I think it will be safe someday.”

Joyce’s modest home is a showcase of her talented handwork. She has framed counted cross-stitch pictures, beautiful quilt hangings and a lap-quilt on her couch. In the corner of her living room next to a large window is a quilt frame with the latest production she is working on.

Her love of reading shows with the many books on the coffee table and in book cases. She says she usually reads and completes a book in a day or two. She is currently working on what she calls her “UFOs” — unfinished objects — in her sewing room.

Not one to be idle, Joyce is constantly working on one project or another. With 13 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren she has plenty of gift-making ahead of her. Besides being an expert seamstress, Joyce is a published poet, has written music and lyrics for her church and taught Sunday school for years.

“I come from a family of teachers,” she said.

When asked about aging, she said she doesn’t think too much about it.

“You can’t get out of it, so why waste energy worrying about it. There are lots of resources and advantages available for the elderly today.”

To other older people she advises, “Stay active, especially your mind, and stay involved with others in whatever way you can.”

Laughter also helps, she said.

“I couldn’t survive without my Irish sense of humor,” Joyce said. “Young folks shouldn’t take themselves so seriously. The world was not made for you; you were made for the world, so make it a better place. Don’t worry about having so many possessions; they aren’t what make you a winner. Volunteer, help others and make a difference in the world.”