The life and legacy of Joyce Eller did not end with her untimely death. She affected and inspired thousands of individuals along her life’s circuitous journey and her legacy of love and care will be honored and celebrated by family and friends for many years to come.

Joyce left this earthly life on March 30, 2024 at the age of 69 after years of battling the devastating effects of liver and kidney disease. She is survived by her husband, David. They were partners in life for 44 years. She is also survived by her sister, Claudia Sullenger and her half-sister, Connie Williams. And then there is the loving legion of nephews and nieces, great nephews and great nieces, great-great nephews and great-great nieces and friends from across the country and around the world.

Joyce was a 1972 graduate of Lewis County High School and a 1974 graduate of Columbia State Community College. Thereafter, she began her ministry of comfort, caring, and healing, working tirelessly as a nurse for 50 years to bring peace to the bodies of the aged and ailing.

She accepted Christ at an early age, and she sat on the front row of the Antioch Church of Christ at 5:30 AM service, faithfully until her sickness succeeded in keeping her from doing so. She was God’s ambassador and her mission and her very real calling was spreading unconditional love.

Having a lust for life and dreams of adventure, exploration, and meaningful connections, she was a great example of one who chose to live life to the fullest, finding a life partner who also had dreams of world exploration and glorious adventure. They were an inseparable pair and a match truly made in heaven. In good times and bad, thick and thin, hell and high water they devotedly walked each mile of their winding journey together and with great love and admiration for each other. In the final years of her life, she joined her husband as his partner and colleague as he continued his lifelong field studies and investigations into paranormal mysteries. She is now exploring the greatest of all paranormal mysteries.
Her passion was travel and her appetite for this was never satiated, always longing to see more and more of God’s glorious creation, every journey inspiring other journeys.

Another of her great joys was to spend time with her large family and her many friends. In her world, there were never too many loved ones in a room and there were never enough babies to love, kiss, and hold.

Joyce, you are at home. Your journey is complete. And your faith, so viciously tried by Satan, remained steadfast and unwavering. “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Bask in the serenity of eternal painless life with Christ.

You fought with a warrior’s passion the battles of life and sickness. Now your battles are over. Now you can rest comfortably in paradise. You deserve to rest your troubled body. You are in a better place surrounded by constant, ceaseless love and although we rejoice at your peace, we ache…selfishly… for more time with you. Modern instrumentation is sorely inadequate to record the dimensions, the height, the breadth, and the weight of the sorrow created by your leaving. Life haunted children we stand on the rugged shore and weep, aimless and impotent in our attempts at direction, for you were the compass always pointing the way.

Those of us who are left behind, wretched and crying while helplessly trapped in our earthly shells are, ultimately, poorer because of your absence. And this absence leaves us with an immense hole in our collective heart in the shape and form of you… Our precious and glorious Joyce.

We miss the brilliance of your azure eyes. We miss the readiness of your sparkling smile. We miss everything about who you were, are, and will always be.

And it will always remain thus until that grand day when we hug you closely, see your smile, and hear your crystal laughter once again…forever.

Floral tributes are welcome. In lieu of flowers, we ask mourners and those who loved Joyce to consider a donation to “Alive Hospice”, In Memory of Joyce. This can be done via the following link: https://www.alivehospice.org/get-involved/give/ or by mailing a check, marked “In Memory of Joyce Eller” to: Alive Hospice, 1718 Patterson St., Nashville, TN 37203.

A visitation with family and friends will be held on Saturday, April 13, 2024 from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at McDonald Funeral Home in Hohenwald, TN. Funeral Services will immediately follow, beginning at 1:00 PM with burial to follow in the Whitehead Cemetery in Waynesboro, TN.