Joyce Baughan Morton

On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at age 91, Joyce B. Morton died after years of slow decline from dementia.

Joyce was born in the hamlet of Bethel in Charlotte County, Va. She graduated from Randolph-Henry high school where she played clarinet in the marching band and loved riding in the bus with the sports players to and from games. She attended what was then Radford College for Women (Radford University) and received a degree in education. She went on to teach for nearly thirty years at Midway (first high school and then elementary school) in Dinwiddie County. For a woman barely five feet tall, she was the coach of the girls’ basketball and softball teams and maintained friendships with many of her former players for years. The majority of her years at Midway she taught the fourth grade. She loved teaching this age group and was “the teacher” you wanted your child to have. She especially loved teaching Virginia history and had toured practically every point of historical interest in the state. In 1954, just prior to starting her teaching career, she married Nelson E. Morton, also from the Bethel area. He was her best friend’s brother, and they were crazy about each other. They settled in Petersburg and then in Dinwiddie County, enjoying over fifty-five years of happy marriage until Nelson died in 2009. Joyce continued to live in her “little white house in the pines” until her dementia made that an impossibility.

Joyce was a member of the great generation, a patriot, and a devout Christian, being a life-long member of the United Methodist church. She served her church in many capacities over the years…teaching Sunday school, helping with Vacation Bible Schools, serving the alter guild, but her favorite ministry was being “first alto” in the church choir at High Street UMC and then at Kenwood UMC. Joyce was a talented hostess. Although her own family was small, her husband had many siblings and countless first cousins and their families, all of whom Joyce welcomed into their home on numerous occasions for many, many years. She had a great love of flowers, both in gardening and arranging. She took particular pride in her iris and daylily collections and knew both the common name and Latin name of just about every blooming thing in her yard. Joyce also loved the theatre, and from early on in their marriage, Nelson and she (and eventually their son) were regular attendees at plays and musicals throughout the Tri-Cities and Richmond area. She loved ice cream, lots and lots of ice cream. Last, but certainly not least, Joyce had a life-long joy of travel. From the time she was a teenager and got into a small private plane with her father and flew to Florida, Joyce loved to be on the go. She traveled to all fifty states, every province in Canada, and dozens of countries around the world, usually with her dear friend and travel buddy, Virginia Walker. Joyce visited the Great Wall of China, the Barrier Reef in Australia, the Great Pyramids, the Holy Land, African safaris, Windsor Castle, the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coliseum, Stone Hedge, and more cathedrals and holy relics than the most pious pilgrim.

Joyce is survived by her son, Nelson Kirk Morton of Richmond, her sister Willie Jean B. Johnson (Raymond, deceased) of Phenix, Va., her niece Cheryl Scott (Ted), and nephews Henry Austin, Jr. (Tonya), and David Austin (JoAnne). In addition to “blood kin”, Joyce is survived by her two “church daughters”, Karen Shipman (Kent) and Allison Patrick (Walter) who are the children of church friends, and by a wonderful and steadfast friend and companion whom she met while volunteering at Mercy Southside Regional Medical Center, Donald Schroeder, who brought her much joy in the years after her husband died.

A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 15, 2025 at the Colonial Heights Chapel of E. Alvin Small Funeral Homes, 2033 Boulevard. The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. at the funeral home. Interment will follow in Bethel Baptist Church Cemetery, Phenix, Virginia. The family respectfully requests no flowers or plants of any kind but would prefer that you donate to a rescue squad of your choice or the Red Cross. Online condolences may be registered at www.ealvinsmall.com.