Joyce was born in Mt. Victory, KY on a small farm where she was the youngest of 10 children. Six of her brothers served in WW2. She recalls spending most of her childhood teasing her brothers and sisters. She also enjoyed dancing.
She attended Berea College in Kentucky. Berea College was the first interracial and coeducational college in the South and was essentially for low-income people who could not otherwise afford college tuition. Joyce worked at Boone Tavern during her college years, where she met her husband, Mark Judge. Joyce graduated in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and became an elementary school teacher while her husband practiced as a General Family Practitioner in Kentucky.
Later, she and her husband relocated to Tennessee where Mark attended medical school at Vanderbilt University and completed an ophthalmology residency. Joyce became a homemaker to tend to her four children, Marcia, Mark, David and Daniel until they were school aged. Once she was able to return to work, she worked as an office manager at her husband’s practice.
Joyce always had an interest in the mental health needs of others. She founded and became the first Executive Director of the TN AMI (Alliance of Mental Illness). She also was the initiator and program facilitator of Tennessee’s first Crisis Intervention Team to assist law enforcement with police calls involving individuals suffering mental health crisis.
As early as 1984, the Tennessee Mental Health Association proposed forming and overseeing a statewide support organization for families of people with mental illness. But some family members, including Joyce V. Judge of Knoxville, had another idea: that family members should form and oversee their own statewide support organization.
Joyce was able to speak to the US Congress advocating insurance benefits for mental health. Her family has a recording of her speech where you can hear paper rattling, chairs scooting, coughing and voices saying “who is the next speaker? I thought they were speaking about mental illness?” There was a brief intro of Joyce, and she gave a quick thank you to her audience … then she said (paraphrasing), “Ladies and Gentlemen, before me on the table I have placed a model of a heart. We need this vital organ to function to maintain our lives and we need this organ to be healthy in order for us to have a quality of life.” Then she paused and continued “Before you I have placed another human organ that is just as vital and important for our survival and quality of life. When we look at how much focus, attention, resources are spent on research for heart issues, I point out it is just as important that we give equal amounts of focus, attention, research and resources, especially health insurance benefits for the treatment of conditions involving THE BRAIN. I conclude my remarks. Thank you.” Joyce spent the rest of her working years focused on mental health issues of others.
Joyce is such a joyous person and is always smiling. Her life motto is, “smile even when things are hard”. After retirement, Joyce has enjoyed spending time with her family, mainly her four grandchildren, who now have given her four great-grandchildren.