Joyce Lockhart Lubold

MILLERTON — Joyce Lockhart Lubold, 86, a longtime Millerton resident, died March 3, 2011, surrounded by her three children, following a brief illness.She was a writer and editor, a lifelong champion of the people she loved, a humanitarian, activist and a colorful leader known for meeting life’s challenges with humor, class and dignity.Mrs. Lubold, who often went by Joyce Lockhart, moved to the Millerton area in 1988 to be with her sister, Jean Moore, a longtime Sharon resident, and their mother, Jerry Kissock, who also lived in Sharon. She moved from western New York after her sister spotted a historic, abandoned barn for sale off Cooper Road. Mrs. Lubold bought it almost on the spot and went about quickly having it restored into a home. The barn always seemed to welcome its share of bats. Mrs. Lubold, a putterer who enjoyed creative carpentry, once fashioned small cages under which to sleep as a way to keep the bats away at bedtime.Once she rented her barn to an independent filmmaker making a movie that entailed bringing several large farm animals inside. She herself owned a number of Great Danes while she lived there.Joyce was involved in a number of civic and community causes and volunteered for Women’s Support Services. She was also active in supporting the building of the Rail Trail in the area.She and her sister enjoyed playing pingpong and were champions at the Senior Olympics. The two of them started a small business selling outdoor pingpong tables, marketing them to senior citizen centers as a way for older people to stay active. They called the company “On Golden Pong.”Joyce Kissock was born March 23, 1924, in Hollywood, Calif., and was raised outside New York City. She graduated from Smith College, and soon became the owner of a literary agency in New York. She married Justin Lubold in 1950, after meeting him at a Gilbert and Sullivan musical rehearsal. While living in New York and raising a young family, she became an editor at Simon & Schuster, where she discovered Charles Schulz and “Peanuts” — only to be rebuffed by an improvident editor. Mr. Schulz went on to another publishing house. She later moved to Corning, N.Y., where she and her husband raised four children in a log cabin in the woods. As a writer, she brought her particular brand of domestic humor to McCall’s, the Saturday Evening Post, Readers Digest, Ladies Home Journal and Redbook. Doubleday later published a compilation of her work, “This Half of the Apple Is Mine — How To Be Happy Though Married,” in 1965. She also co-founded a regional literary and humor magazine in New York called “The Finger Lakes Chronicle.”A car accident in 1973, in which her son, Justin McNeil, was severely injured, led to a new chapter in her life. She became dedicated to helping people with brain injuries and was an advocate for the mentally and physically disabled. She was a founder of several agencies and worked tirelessly as the executive director and board member of several of them. One agency, the AIM Independent Living Center, is now active in 11 counties and has a budget of more than $5 million.Her later years were spent on Martha’s Vineyard, where she had summered for years. There, she enjoyed playing bridge with her friends, writing and taking classes online. She was also active in reading and writing groups on the island. Many of the stories she wrote for the group were about the humor of island life, its odd assortment of characters, or what the unique nature of the area said about the world. She often used creative metaphors to express herself in her characteristic, circuitous way, ending her sentences with a strong, salient point.One recent story compared the plight of the island plover to bridge players. “Today small flocks of these previously wide-ranging island residents can be spotted in isolated areas that gather and feed most often in local senior centers, though two or three sometimes collect in widow-walked homes of year-rounders who, counting their diminishing numbers in dismay can easily be spotted.”To everyone she touched, she was known for her wit and warmth, her self-deprecating style and an uncanny ability to make people feel good about themselves. She was an intrepid treasure hunter who often used metal detectors to unearth odd assortments of articles — once taking particular pleasure in the finding of a dollhouse toilet seat and then days later finding the toilet itself in the ground several feet away.She is survived by three children, Alan Durnin, Jean Lockhart and Gordon Clarke; and five grandchildren. Her son, Justin McNeil, died in 1978. Memorial donations would be welcome on behalf of individuals with brain injuries. Send to the McNeil Center, c/o AIM Independent Living Center, 271 East First St., Corning, NY 14830.