Longtime Preston resident, Joyce Bruce Nelson, 94, passed away peacefully September 9, 2014 at home. A Celebration of Life Service will be held, Saturday, September 20th at 1:00pm at the Raging River Community Church (formerly Preston Baptist Church) Preston, Washington.
Joyce was born November 21, 1919 at home in the International Settlement of Shanghai, China to British born parents, Capt. Edgar Bruce Green and Bertha Victoria Dobinson Bruce Green. Joyce grew up in two port cities, Shanghai and Tientsin, China. She attended Shanghai Public School and St. Joseph High School in Tientsin, China.
Her father worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs in the 1930s as the Harbour Master of the ports of Shanghai and Tientsin. While in Shanghai, they lived atop the Customs House (Clock Tower) on the Bund. Her two brothers were sent off to British boarding school.
In 1938, Joyce and her mother escaped from the Japanese bombing in China aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway and fled across Russia and Europe to England. In London, she excelled in business school and became a shorthand typist secretary. She worked for the W.H. Smith Booksellers, UK and for the British Government in the Censorship Department during the Blitz. While working for the High Commissioner to Ceylon, Sir Claude Corea, who later became the President of the United Nations Security Council, Joyce declined a position at the UN in search of her father after the war who had survived internment at Santo Tomas concentration camp. The reunion in Canada was short lived so Joyce went to live in a Seattle boarding house. It was there she met her future husband, Randal Philip Nelson, who also had been serving in Tientsin, China for six months, disarming the Japanese as a United States Marine, at the end of WWII.
On December 28, 1949, Randal and Joyce were married in Preston, Wash. and began their new life together of almost 65 years. Although Joyce had traveled to many countries around the world, Joyce led a simple life as a beloved wife, mother, aunt and homemaker, who excelled at her craft of baking and learned to make many Swedish delights such as Swedish Tea Rings. She loved tea time, gardening and had a passion for growing beautiful flowers and vegetables, reading and traveling to Vancouver Island in the summers. She loved her family, her friends, her church and her community.
Joyce was a faithful member of the Preston Baptist Church, the Preston Community Club and VASA Lodge #378. Proud to have become a naturalized American citizen in 1956, she served on the King County Board of Elections in Preston for many years. Joyce enjoyed, in years past, volunteering at the North Bend Nursing Home where she served homemade cookies and tea.
She is survived by her daughter, Jane, from Preston, Washington. Her two brothers precede her in death: brother Alwyn Edgar Bruce Green of Tokyo, Japan and brother Norman Cecil Bruce Green of London, England; Surviving her are other family relatives in England: two nieces, Marion Bruce Green Harvey and Cathy Bruce Green and other great nieces and nephews; Sister-in-law, Bernice (Glenn) Carlson; niece Susan (Charles) Segelhorst and their children, Annika and Thomas; nephew Steven (Louise) Carlson and their children, Greta and Sacha, all from California, and many loving friends.
Memorial gifts can be given in Joyce’s honor and mailed to:
Adra P. Berry Memorial Food Bank
C/O Raging River Community Church
PO Box 948
Preston, WA 98050
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