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Services
Friends may gather with Joyce’s family for Memorial Visitation at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne, on Friday, May 20, 2016 from 6-9 PM.
Joyce E. Fitzgibbon, age 61, of Wayne, passed away at her home on Monday, May 16, 2016.
The year was 1954. It was in that year that Roger and Virginia Mullin were blessed with twin girls – Joyce and Jayne. The doctors delivered Jayne first, and even up to that moment no one realized yet that Mom was carrying twins. As the doctors attended to sister Jayne’s needs, poor Joyce’s vitals began to drop. Joyce was fighting for her life as her Mom realized that her job was not done yet. Joyce battled but was born healthy. Throughout the years, the twins enjoyed a loving and inseparable bond that grew stronger in adulthood. They even went to the same college- but we will get to that later! Like most typical siblings, the girls didn’t always get along. Despite the childhood rivalry, the girls, along with their older sister Karen and younger sister Nancy, all enjoyed a loving sisterhood.
Joyce grew up in Staten Island, NY where she graduated from Susan E. Wagner High School with the Class of 1972. She went on to earn an Associate’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She loved numbers and had a knack for working with them. Although she used her creative mind for daily projects, she went on to get an Accounting certificate at Pace University in NYC. Her first job was with Helmsley- Spear Inc. Then at Silverstein Properties of New York City in the accounting department. It was there that she met a young flirtatious auditor named Mark FitzGibbon. It seemed he flirted with almost every lady in her office. So, when he asked her out she just laughed and asked “Why me? I always see you flirting with other women!” His reply was that he was not flirting; he was gathering information about her. It turned out that he really meant it! They got married on Saturday August 21, 1981 in the Roman Catholic Church in Clifton. After a honeymoon in Sonesta, Bermuda Joyce and Mark settled in Clifton.
Joyce continued to work and eventually she and Mark moved to Wayne where she lived for over thirty years. There they were blessed with three children – Ryan, their eldest followed by twins Meredith and Keith. Sadly, she and Mark only had nine years of marriage and parenthood together before cancer took Mark’s life in 1990.
Suddenly Joyce found herself in the unenviable position of being a single mother of a five-year-old boy and nine month old twins. She battled again, this time taking a position in the accounts receivable department of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney and Carpenter Law Firm in Morristown so that she could provide for her young family. At home she drew on the home improvement skills taught to her as a young girl by her father. No project was too much of a challenge for Joyce and she bravely took on tiling, electrical, and plumbing improvements because who else could she turn to for help. In fact, Joyce not only worked on her own house but volunteered to help others with their do-it-yourself projects too.
In March, 1991, Joyce found love and companionship again. It was before online dating really took off and she met a great guy through an independent dating service for singles. His name is Peter Weil and they enjoyed a special relationship for the past twenty-five years.
Joyce always took a great interest in the lives of her children. She volunteered as a Cub Scout Master when her two sons were of Cub Scout age. She was tougher than some of the scouts and she loved going with them on camping trips. One time while camping she got her minivan stuck on a large rock. When she stepped out of the van she exclaimed, “where did that come from?” It took several Cub Scout leaders and Boy Scouts to safely lift the van off the rock so Joyce could get back to her busy and fast pace life.
It was through the Cub Scouts that Joyce and her daughter Meredith (tough like Mom) were introduced to a caring organization called The Seeing Eye. This triggered an interest in raising pups and preparing them for their seeing-eye training. Joyce ended up raising a total of three seeing-eye prospects – all Labrador Retrievers. Jevon was a black lab who eventually became the faithful companion of a blind college professor in Washington DC. Karlo was a black lab also. His aggressive nature rendered him unsuitable for being a seeing-eye dog but made him the perfect candidate to help the police uphold law and justice. Finally, there was Éclair, a chocolate lab who loved Joyce and her family too much so they ended up keeping him. Joyce never saw an animal she didn’t like and over the years another Labrador-mix named Timber. Joyce enjoyed opening up the pool to allow Éclair and Timber to cool down in the summers. She also took in numerous cats including Brandy, Oreo, Butler, Bounce and Brittany, Cloudy and Midnight, and Smokey who all found lots of love in Joyce’s care. Once while attending one of her son Ryan’s baseball games, a cockatiel landed right on her shoulder. Talk about animal magnetism! She checked with all the local shelters to see if anyone had reported a missing bird. Since there were none, she took her new feathered friend home and named him Baxter. Feeling that Baxter needed some company she went out and purchased two more cockatiels – one for each of her twins and they named them Beethoven and Barbie.
Joyce enjoyed the challenge of working with her kids putting one of those thousand-piece puzzles together and, of course, she always looked forward to some good mommy-daughter time with Meredith, or watching movies with Keith. In spite of working full-time and maintaining a household, somehow Joyce managed to never miss a Cub Scout meeting, baseball game or marching band performances her kids were involved in. While that was more than the average person could handle, she also gladly took in her nephew Gavin who lived in South Carolina but was going to college in New York City. She gladly offered her house to be his college dorm!
In March 2014, Joyce herself was diagnosed with cancer. Like all the other times she was up against a challenge, including the time she took on a car jacker and ended up with a black eye, Joyce displayed a great will to fight and survive. Throughout her cancer treatments she never took off from work and often drove herself to undergo radiation. She only ever missed work when forced to be admitted to the hospital. When the doctors gave up and sent Joyce home to be on hospice care, she beat the odds and experienced improved health and even got off of hospice care. Soon after she returned to work and worked until this past January.
Joyce inspired many with her feisty, never give up attitude. She will be dearly missed by all her loved ones and many friends.
Joyce is survived by her three dear children: Ryan, Meredith and Keith Fitzgibbon, all of Wayne; loving companion Peter Weil of Pequannock; three dear sisters: Karen Motola of Las Vegas, NV, Jayne Slyman of Gaston, SC, and Nancy and husband Allan Curren of Horseheads, NY; and several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her beloved husband Mark in 1990; and her parents Roger and Virginia Mullin in 2001.
Those planning an expression of sympathy in Joyce’s memory are asked to consider The Seeing Eye, Inc. 10 Washington Valley Road, Morristown, NJ 07960, or at www.seeingeye.org
If you would like to send a private condolence directly to the family use this condolence section.
Friends may gather with Joyce’s family for Memorial Visitation at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne, on Friday, May 20, 2016 from 6-9 PM.
Services
Friends may gather with Joyce’s family for Memorial Visitation at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne, on Friday, May 20, 2016 from 6-9 PM.
Joyce E. Fitzgibbon, age 61, of Wayne, passed away at her home on Monday, May 16, 2016.
The year was 1954. It was in that year that Roger and Virginia Mullin were blessed with twin girls – Joyce and Jayne. The doctors delivered Jayne first, and even up to that moment no one realized yet that Mom was carrying twins. As the doctors attended to sister Jayne’s needs, poor Joyce’s vitals began to drop. Joyce was fighting for her life as her Mom realized that her job was not done yet. Joyce battled but was born healthy. Throughout the years, the twins enjoyed a loving and inseparable bond that grew stronger in adulthood. They even went to the same college- but we will get to that later! Like most typical siblings, the girls didn’t always get along. Despite the childhood rivalry, the girls, along with their older sister Karen and younger sister Nancy, all enjoyed a loving sisterhood.
Joyce grew up in Staten Island, NY where she graduated from Susan E. Wagner High School with the Class of 1972. She went on to earn an Associate’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She loved numbers and had a knack for working with them. Although she used her creative mind for daily projects, she went on to get an Accounting certificate at Pace University in NYC. Her first job was with Helmsley- Spear Inc. Then at Silverstein Properties of New York City in the accounting department. It was there that she met a young flirtatious auditor named Mark FitzGibbon. It seemed he flirted with almost every lady in her office. So, when he asked her out she just laughed and asked “Why me? I always see you flirting with other women!” His reply was that he was not flirting; he was gathering information about her. It turned out that he really meant it! They got married on Saturday August 21, 1981 in the Roman Catholic Church in Clifton. After a honeymoon in Sonesta, Bermuda Joyce and Mark settled in Clifton.
Joyce continued to work and eventually she and Mark moved to Wayne where she lived for over thirty years. There they were blessed with three children – Ryan, their eldest followed by twins Meredith and Keith. Sadly, she and Mark only had nine years of marriage and parenthood together before cancer took Mark’s life in 1990.
Suddenly Joyce found herself in the unenviable position of being a single mother of a five-year-old boy and nine month old twins. She battled again, this time taking a position in the accounts receivable department of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney and Carpenter Law Firm in Morristown so that she could provide for her young family. At home she drew on the home improvement skills taught to her as a young girl by her father. No project was too much of a challenge for Joyce and she bravely took on tiling, electrical, and plumbing improvements because who else could she turn to for help. In fact, Joyce not only worked on her own house but volunteered to help others with their do-it-yourself projects too.
In March, 1991, Joyce found love and companionship again. It was before online dating really took off and she met a great guy through an independent dating service for singles. His name is Peter Weil and they enjoyed a special relationship for the past twenty-five years.
Joyce always took a great interest in the lives of her children. She volunteered as a Cub Scout Master when her two sons were of Cub Scout age. She was tougher than some of the scouts and she loved going with them on camping trips. One time while camping she got her minivan stuck on a large rock. When she stepped out of the van she exclaimed, “where did that come from?” It took several Cub Scout leaders and Boy Scouts to safely lift the van off the rock so Joyce could get back to her busy and fast pace life.
It was through the Cub Scouts that Joyce and her daughter Meredith (tough like Mom) were introduced to a caring organization called The Seeing Eye. This triggered an interest in raising pups and preparing them for their seeing-eye training. Joyce ended up raising a total of three seeing-eye prospects – all Labrador Retrievers. Jevon was a black lab who eventually became the faithful companion of a blind college professor in Washington DC. Karlo was a black lab also. His aggressive nature rendered him unsuitable for being a seeing-eye dog but made him the perfect candidate to help the police uphold law and justice. Finally, there was Éclair, a chocolate lab who loved Joyce and her family too much so they ended up keeping him. Joyce never saw an animal she didn’t like and over the years another Labrador-mix named Timber. Joyce enjoyed opening up the pool to allow Éclair and Timber to cool down in the summers. She also took in numerous cats including Brandy, Oreo, Butler, Bounce and Brittany, Cloudy and Midnight, and Smokey who all found lots of love in Joyce’s care. Once while attending one of her son Ryan’s baseball games, a cockatiel landed right on her shoulder. Talk about animal magnetism! She checked with all the local shelters to see if anyone had reported a missing bird. Since there were none, she took her new feathered friend home and named him Baxter. Feeling that Baxter needed some company she went out and purchased two more cockatiels – one for each of her twins and they named them Beethoven and Barbie.
Joyce enjoyed the challenge of working with her kids putting one of those thousand-piece puzzles together and, of course, she always looked forward to some good mommy-daughter time with Meredith, or watching movies with Keith. In spite of working full-time and maintaining a household, somehow Joyce managed to never miss a Cub Scout meeting, baseball game or marching band performances her kids were involved in. While that was more than the average person could handle, she also gladly took in her nephew Gavin who lived in South Carolina but was going to college in New York City. She gladly offered her house to be his college dorm!
In March 2014, Joyce herself was diagnosed with cancer. Like all the other times she was up against a challenge, including the time she took on a car jacker and ended up with a black eye, Joyce displayed a great will to fight and survive. Throughout her cancer treatments she never took off from work and often drove herself to undergo radiation. She only ever missed work when forced to be admitted to the hospital. When the doctors gave up and sent Joyce home to be on hospice care, she beat the odds and experienced improved health and even got off of hospice care. Soon after she returned to work and worked until this past January.
Joyce inspired many with her feisty, never give up attitude. She will be dearly missed by all her loved ones and many friends.
Joyce is survived by her three dear children: Ryan, Meredith and Keith Fitzgibbon, all of Wayne; loving companion Peter Weil of Pequannock; three dear sisters: Karen Motola of Las Vegas, NV, Jayne Slyman of Gaston, SC, and Nancy and husband Allan Curren of Horseheads, NY; and several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her beloved husband Mark in 1990; and her parents Roger and Virginia Mullin in 2001.
Those planning an expression of sympathy in Joyce’s memory are asked to consider The Seeing Eye, Inc. 10 Washington Valley Road, Morristown, NJ 07960, or at www.seeingeye.org
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