Joyce
Baker
19
Silk Oaks Drive
Ormond
By The Sea, FL 32176
386-299-0565
Marriage, children, and a career in real estate and antiquities came before my move to Miami and return to college in the early seventies. My continued education was interrupted again by the birth of identical triplet boys in 1979. I attended Florida International University, Miami, FL; UC Berkeley, CA; Melbourne Medical School, Victoria, Australia.
After undergrad and a stint of teaching hearing impaired and special needs children I returned to my alma mater’s grad division. Internship and residency in forensic chemistry and anthropology was done at the Dade County Medical Examiner Department where I stayed on (as a forensic anthropologist) after completion of my studies.
Miami had been home for more than half my life and it was a big change in mid 2003 to semi-retire to our beach home almost 400 miles to the north. Around this time, my husband, best friend, and long time partner, Thomas Murphy, was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within months.
Beach life is not for me and my hobbies of SCUBA, tennis, sailing and photography are mere memories. My Heritage Classic, its carburetor drained, sits covered in my garage next to the also unused canoe.
I have four children & four grandchildren: Carole (Max, the very best son-in-law in the world)—Elizabeth, Ian, and Noah; John (Kim, the very best daughter-in-law in the world)—Liam; and my sons Christopher & David who have no children.
I
now work full time recovering tissue and organs for transplant and research.
The hours are long but I am a part of a donor’s last gift and it’s extremely
rewarding. There are many things that I still wish I had done, but none that I
wish I hadn’t.