LAMBERTVILLE – Joyce Day, a Toledo elementary teacher for 35 years who took delight in guiding new readers, died Aug. 26 in her Lambertville home. She was 86.

She had an apparent heart attack, her son, Chuck Day, said.

Mrs. Day began and closed her career in the Toledo Public Schools, retiring in 2003. Early on, she taught at Spring School in North Toledo. Other stops included Raymer and East Side Central schools in East Toledo.

She took a break from the classroom from 1969 into the late 1970s to care for her son at home. She resumed her career at Good Shepherd School in East Toledo and later returned to the Toledo school system. 

“She loved the younger grades, so she taught everything from kindergarten, and I don’t think she went any higher than fourth grade,” Mr. Day said.

With her interest in developing readers, she was especially fond of first and second graders.

“She loved reading. She loved reading to kids and teaching kids to read,” Mr. Day said.

“She was very nurturing,” he said, adding, “She did not have any trouble being stern to make sure I was staying in line. She had a way of looking at you, to let you know you’d better straighten up.

“She had a lot of friends. Everyone talked about her as being just such a friendly, lovable, kind person. I’m sure that’s how the kids remembered her.”

Mrs. Day was treasurer for a quarter century of the Gamma Beta chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, a society for women educators.

She also had been an officer of Chapter E of Philanthropic Educational Organization, an international group known as P.E.O, which helps women with education opportunities through, in part, scholarships.

“She appreciated her own education and what she was able to do with it and enjoyed being part of an organization that is like a sisterhood, reaching out to others and giving them educational opportunities,” said Janet Nyman, who met Mrs. Day more than 23 years through P.E.O. They often went to meetings together.

“She was very sweet and very kind. I can picture her being a very caring wonderful teacher,” Mrs. Nyman said. “That’s how she carried herself — always ready to pitch in and do what was needed.”

She was born Aug. 14, 1936, to Leota and Frank Heyne. Her father owned a wholesale jewelry business, and she grew up in central Toledo’s Westmoreland neighborhood. She was a 1954 graduate of DeVilbiss High School, where she was on the synchronized swimming team.

She received a bachelor of education degree in 1958 from Ohio State University. She was a member of Tri Delta sorority and, later, its alumni association.

She remained close to a friend from Westmoreland, the late Susan Anderson, who later lived next door in Lambertville. They took part in activities of the Maumee Valley Herb Society at Toledo Botanical Garden.

Having summers off, she and her son, when he was growing up, gathered the family dogs and fish and packed the houseplants for a season at the Days’ vacation home at Suttons Bay in northwest Lower Michigan, where she also made close friends.

“She was very generous with compliments, sometimes with complete strangers,” Mr. Day said. “She would strike up a conversation with a server at a restaurant or a cashier at a store and just chat. She was a conversationalist. She was approachable. People said over and over they enjoyed talking to her. She was interested in what they were doing.”

Surviving are her husband, Charles L. Day, whom she married Aug. 5; 1961; son, Charles H. Day, and a grandson.

A celebration of life event will be scheduled later. Arrangements are by Reeb Funeral Home, Sylvania.

The family suggests tributes to P.E.O. in care of Tish Thayer in Sylvania or the Cure Alzheimer's Fund.

First Published September 7, 2022, 4:00 a.m.